ioo THE LIFE OF PHILIP HENRY GOSSE. 



the season of twelve weeks, which Philip Gosse found a 

 very timely alleviation of his expenses, though the occu- 

 pation was unpleasing to his taste and irksome to his rapid 

 habit of mind. But the ever-present stimulus of scientific 

 investigation kept up his spirits, and there began to grow 

 up within him a new sensation, the definite ambition to 

 gain scientific and literary distinction. The first en- 

 couragement from without which came to him in his 

 career, the earliest welcome from the academic world, 

 arrived in the early spring of 1836, in the modest shape of 

 a corresponding membership of the Literary and Historical 

 Society of Quebec. This was quickly followed by a 

 similar compliment from the Natural History Society of 

 Montreal. These elections, indeed, conferred in themselves 

 no great honour, for these institutions, in those early 

 colonial days, were still in their boyhood, and too inex- 

 perienced to be critical in their selection. It was none the 

 less a great gratification to the young man. He contributed 

 papers to the Transactions of either society, sending to 

 Montreal a Lepidoptera Comptoniensa and to Quebec an 

 essay on The Temperature of Newfoundland and Notes on 

 the Comparative Forwardness of the Spring in Newfoundland 

 and Canada. He also sent to the new museum at 

 Montreal a collection of the lepidoptera of Compton. 

 All the while he was keeping his copious daily journal of 

 observations, a diary which lies before me now, and from 

 which I extract one day's record as a sample of the rest : — 

 "August 10, [1835]. — I took a walk before breakfast 

 "to a maple-wood, where I spent a few hours very 

 " pleasantly. There was one large but quite decayed 

 " tree, whose trunk was pierced with very many holes, 

 " and in almost every hole were the remains of a Sirex, 

 " almost gone to dust — a large species somewhat 

 " resembling Sirex gigas. There were also remnants of 



