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reach of his arm, each of them a receptacle devoted to a special 
object of inquiry. To me this operation of ‘‘ pumping,” as he 
called it, was most instructive. I could not but feel that any 
information that I could give him was comparatively trivial, 
while what I carried away was often as much as I could stagger 
under. As his health fluctuated or declined, and especially 
during his sharper attacks of illness, these interviews became 
intermittent, and on such occasions he would ask me to 
bring my own work with me to Down, where I pursued 
my studies free from the distractions of Kew, and with 
the advantages of his counsel and aid whenever desired. 
These morning interviews were followed by his taking 
a complete rest, for they always exhausted him, often producing a 
buzzing noise in the head, and sometimes what he called ‘ stars 
in the eyes,” the latter too often the prelude of an attack of 
violent eczema in the head, during which he was hardly recog- 
nisable. These attacks were followed by a period of what with 
him was the nearest approach to health, and always to activity. 
Shortly before lunch I used to hear his mellow voice under my 
window, summoning me to walk with him, first to inspect the 
experiments in his little plant-houses, and then to take a precise 
number of rounds of the ‘*sand-walk,” which he trudged with 
quick step, staff in hand, wearing a broad-brimmed straw hat 
and light shooting coat in summer, anda felt hat and warm cape 
in winter. This walk was repeated in the afternoon; on both 
these occasions his conversation was delightful, animated 
when he was well enough, never depressing however ill 
he might be. It turned naturally on the scenes we had 
witnessed in far-away regions and anecdotes of our 
seafaring lives, and on the discoveries in science, then, as now, 
hurrying onwards and treading on one another’s heels in their 
haste for recognition. In the evening we had books and music, 
of which latter Mr. Darwin was, during the first few years of 
our friendship, almost passionately fond. I well remember 
now, at the 1547 meeting of the British Association in this city, 
his asking me to accompany him to hear the organ at New 
College Chapel, and, on coming away, saying tome, ‘‘ Hooker, 
I felt it up and down my back;” and I find in the ‘‘ Life and 
Letters’’ that when a student at Cambridge, after hearing a 
beautiful anthem, he made use of a similar expression to a friend 
who had accompanied him. It is a curious fact that music 
should have had in after life no charm for him—that ‘it set 
him thinking too energetically at what he had been at work on 
instead of giving him pleasure.” 
AN ESTIMATE OF DARWIN’S CHARACTER. 
If I were asked what traits in Mr. Darwin’s character 
appeared to me most remarkable during the many exercises of 
his intellect that I was privileged to bear witness to, they would 
be, first, his self-control and indomitable perseverance under 
bodily suffering, then his ready grasp of difficult problems, and, 
lastly, the power of turning to account the waste observations, 
failures, and even the blunders of his predecessors in whatever 
subject of inquiry. It was this power of utilising the vain 
efforts of others which in my friend Sir James Paget’s opinion 
afforded the best evidence of Darwin’s genius. Like so many 
men who have been great discoverers, or whose works or 
writings are proofs of their having intellects indicating great 
originality, he was wont to attribute his success to industry 
rather than ability. ‘‘It is dogged that does it’? was an ex- 
pression he often made use of. In his autobiography he says of 
himself, ‘‘ My industry has been nearly as great as it could have 
been in the observation and collection of facts”; and, again, ‘‘ of 
the complex and diversified mental qualities and conditions which 
determined my success as a man of science, I regard as the most 
important the love of science—unbounded patience in long re- 
flecting over many subjects—industry in observing facts, and a 
fair share of invention, as well as of common sense.” In this 
introspection he has, if my judgment is correct, greatly under- 
valued ‘‘invention’”’; that is originality or that outcome of the 
exercise of the imagination which is so conspicuous in every 
experiment he made or controlled, and in the genesis of every 
new fact or idea that he first brought to light. Referring to 
his disregard when possible of his bodily sufferings, I 
remember his once saying to me that his sleepless nights 
had their advantages, for they enabled him to forget his 
hours of misery when recording the movement of his beloved 
plants from dark to dawn and daybreak. For those other 
qualities of head and heart that endeared Mr. Darwin to his 
friends I must refer you to the ‘‘ Life and Letters.”” There is 
NO. 1547, VOL. 60] 
NATURE 
[JUNE 22, 1899 
only one upon which I would comment, it is that passage of his 
autobiography where he says, ‘‘I have no great quickness of 
apprehension or wit.” Possibly the ‘‘ of’ and ‘‘ or”’ are here 
transposed ; whether or no, my impression of his conversation 
has left the opposite as characteristic of him. It is, at any rate, 
inconsistent with the fact that in arguing he was ever ready with 
repartee, as I many times experienced to my discomfiture, though 
never to my displeasure ; it was a physic so thoughtfully and 
kindly exhibited. And I may conclude these fragmentary 
records with an anecdote which goes, I think, to support my 
view, and which I give, if not verbally correctly, as nearly as 
my memory of so ancient an episode permits. I was de- 
scribing to him the reception at the Linnean Society, 
where he was unable to be present, of his now famous ac- 
count of “The two forms or dimorphic condition of 
Primula,” for which he took the common primrose as 
an illustration. On that occasion an enthusiastic admirer of its 
author got up, and in concluding his ¢/oge likened British 
botanists who had overlooked so conspicuous and beautiful a 
contrivance to effect cross-fertilisation to Wordsworth’s ‘ Peter 
Bell,” to whom 
“A primrose on the river's brim 
A yellow primrose was to him, 
And it was nothing more.” 
When I told Mr. Darwin of this he roared with laughter, and, 
slapping his side with his hand, a rather common trick with him 
when excited, he said, ‘‘I would rather be the man who 
thought of that on the spur of the moment than have written 
the paper that suggested it.” 
“AMERIND”—A SUGGESTED DESIGNATION 
FOR AMERICAN ABORIGINES. 
NX PART of the Proceedings of the Anthropological Society 
of Washington, at a meeting on May 23, seem destined 
to produce permanent influence on ethnologic nomenclature ; 
this part of the proceedings taking the form of a symposium on 
the name of the native American tribes. The discussion was 
opened by Colonel F. F. Hilder, of the Bureau of American 
Ethnology, witha critical account of the origin of the misnomer 
“Indian,” applied by Columbus to the American aborigines ; 
he was followed by Major J. W. Powell, who advocated the 
substitution of the name Amerznd, recently suggested in a con- 
ference with lexicographers. A communication by Dr. O. T. 
Mason followed, in which the various schemes of ethnologic 
classification and nomenclature were summarised and discussed. 
Contributions to the symposium were made also by Dr. Albert 
S. Gatschet, Dr. Thomas Wilson, and Miss Alice C. Fletcher. 
At the close of the discussion the contributions were summarised 
by President McGee as follows :— 
(1) There is no satisfactory denotive term in use to designate 
the native American tribes. Most biologists and many ethno- 
logists employ the term ‘‘ American” ; but this term is inappro- 
priate, in that it connotes, and is commonly used for, the present 
predominantly Caucasian population. The term ‘‘ Indian” is 
used in popular speech and writing, and to a slight extent in 
ethnologic literature ; but it is seriously objectionable in that it 
perpetuates an error, and for the further reason that it connotes, 
and so confuses, distinct peoples. Various descriptive or con- 
notive terms are also in use, such as ** North Americar Savages,” 
“*Red Men,” ‘&c. ; but these designations are often mislead- 
ing, and never adapted to convenient employment in a denotive 
way. 
(3) In most cases, the classifications on which current nomen- 
clature are based, and many terms depending on them for 
definition, are obsolete ; and the retention of the unsuitable 
nomenclature of the past tends to perpetuate misleading classi- 
fications. 
(3) While the name ‘‘Indian”’ is firmly fixed in American 
literature and speech, and must long retain its current meaning 
(at least as a synonym), the need of scientific students for a 
definite designation is such that any suitable term acceptable to 
ethnologists may be expected to come into use with considerable 
rapidity. In this, as in other respects, the body of working 
specialists form the court of last appeal; and it cannot be 
doubted that their decision will eventually be adopted by 
thinkers along other lines. 
(4) As the most active students of the native American tribes, 
it would seem to be incumbent on American ethnologists to 
propose a general designation for these tribes. 
