184 STUDIES IN INSECT LIFE, ETC. 



" Yes, sir ! if a man were to go by chance at 

 the same time as Burke under a shed to shun a 

 shower, he would say, ' This is an extraordinary 

 man ! ' " 



He married rather late in life, in his forty-ninth 

 year, and was a devoted husband and father. 

 He held unconventional views on the education 

 and the training of his children, but he took the 

 keenest interest in the well-being of each of them, 

 and was seldom away from one or other of them. 

 Under a somewhat brusque exterior lay a kernel 

 of genuine kindliness and even tenderness of 

 heart. 



In 1868 he was already visiting Spitzbergen 

 and the Arctic regions- as naturalist on board a 

 whaler, but his great chance in life came when 

 he joined, as one of the Natural History staff, the 

 " Challenger/' which from 1872 to 1876 was 

 exploring the seas of the world. 



It really was a chance for the scientific staff 

 of the " Challenger " had been definitely selected 

 and appointed, when almost at the last moment 

 a vacancy occurred, and it was on Tait's urgent 

 recommendation that Wyville Thomson gave the 

 vacant post to Murray. Tait did not claim for 

 his young friend that he was as yet a finished 



