MEMOIR. xvii 
bring to view the motives which led him to enter on 
his hfe of travel. What I have said, indeed, may 
perhaps, it is true, help to show — what I was anxious 
early to point out — how very catholic were the 
interests of the deceased, how great the hold each 
separate department of the world's life, and history, 
and daily growth, had laid upon him. Devoted to 
the study of natural history, as I have already 
pointed out, and especially to that of birds — the 
pursuit of which might be called his ruling passion 
— yet never did he close his eyes to all those varied 
interests of other kinds, which were constantly 
opening round him in his life of foreign travel. 
" He was not" indeed, as has lately been said of 
the young French naturalist Jacquemont, who, like 
Frank Oates himself, died early and in harness, — 
" He was not at all one of those specialists who 
shut themselves up in a narrow speciality, and 
become blind and deaf to the great interests of 
human life." ^ Rather may it be said of him, that 
his interests were perhaps too wide, and that he 
overtaxed his strength and powers in following the 
promptings of his nature. Speaking indeed in 
homely phraseology, whilst out in Africa, he 
admitted himself that he had "too many irons in 
the fire," and some of the difficulties and vexations 
which beset him upon his journey must be attributed 
' Mr. P. G. Hanierton, Lives of Modern Frc/u7ii/icii, p. 95. 
c 
