78 BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON. 



Tuesday evening before the day of his death, at 4 P. M., Wednes- 

 day, he was in his study examining a plant which he had had 

 brought to him, and that he read that night before retiring, while 

 as late as the 16th of March, he read two papers on special botani- 

 cal subjects before the Linnean Society. 



The village of Down is fifteen miles southeast of London, four 

 miles from Orpington station on the Southeastern Railway. The 

 country is among the most beautiful agricultural suburbs of London, 

 and I shall never forget the impression of peaceful, quiet seclusion 

 experienced, as we drove from the station and finally through one 

 of those characteristic English lanes, just wide enough for one 

 vehicle, and worn down several feet below the general level — the 

 sense of confinement being enhanced by the luxuriant hedge on 

 either side. This lane skirts the orchard wall for 100 yards and 

 then goes in front of the house, from which it is separated by a 

 grass plot and flint wall overgrown with ivy. 



The Darwin residence is a plain, but spacious, old-fashioned 

 house of the style so common in England, and which, with the sur- 

 rounding well-kept grounds and conservatory, convey that impres- 

 sion of ease and comfort that belong to the average home of the 

 English country gentleman. A noticeable feature is a bow window 

 extending through three stories and covered with trellis and creepers. 

 In Darwinian phrase the environment was favorable for just such 

 calm study and concentration as he found necessary to his health 

 and his researches. 



Upon introduction I was at once struck with his stature (which 

 was much above the average, and I should say fully six feet,) his 

 ponderous brow and long white beard — the moustache being cut on 

 a line with the lips and slightly brown from the habit of snuff- 

 taking. His deep-set eyes were light blue-gray. He made the im- 

 pression of a powerful man reduced somewhat by sickness. The 

 massive brow and forehead show in his later photographs, but not 

 so conspicuously as in a life-sized head of him when younger, which 

 hung in the parlor. 



