2 8o STUDIES IN INSECT LIFE, ETC. 



the early meetings of the Royal Society at Gresham 

 College, and showed the liveliest interest in various 

 investigations on the transfusion of blood, respira- 

 tion under reduced air pressure and many other 

 ingenious experiments and observations by Sir 

 George Ent and others. On January 2Oth, 1665, 

 he took home " Micrographia," Hooke's book on 

 microscopy " a most excellent piece, of which 

 I am very proud." 



Although Pepys had no scientific training- 

 he only began to learn the multiplication table 

 when he was in his thirtieth year, but, later, 

 took the keenest pleasure in teaching it to Mrs. 

 Pepys he, nevertheless, attained to the President- 

 ship of the Royal Society. He had always de- 

 lighted in the company of " the virtuosos " and, 

 in 1662, three years after he began to study 

 arithmetic, he was admitted a fellow of their 

 the Royal Society. In 1681, he was elected 

 president. This post he owed, not to any genius 

 for science, or to any great invention or generalisa- 

 tion, but to his very exceptional powers as an 

 organiser and as a man of business, to his integrity 

 and to the abiding interest he ever showed in the 

 cause of the advancement of knowledge. 



If we pass from the interest taken in scientific 



