Reminiscenses of a Naturalist. 22^ 



floating upon the surface of that BoHvian lake, with many of the 

 peculiar birds of the region, also new to him, standing upon the 

 surface of the great pads, were to him, as a botanist, perhaps, as 

 much a wonder and dehght and as much of a crowning glory to 

 his heart, as the discovery of America was to Columbus, or the 

 Mississippi to De Soto. I will not here relate all he told me, as 

 to the devices and methods adopted by him for transporting 

 in safety the treasures he had found, from the lake to the seaboard 

 and thence to England. How his face lighted up as he rehearsed 

 the pleasures and triumphs of that season ! But it was not all 

 pleasure or unalloyed triumph. For a long while iifter his return 

 to his native country, he lay at the point of death with an abscess 

 on the liver, the result of his living in the tropics, but his temperate 

 habits, wirey constitution and the unremitting care of his wife, and 

 attention by the best medical skill carried him through safely, and 

 after awhile he was able to take the held again. 



I remember, also, upon one occasion, with how much feeling he 

 described the remorse he had experienced, the sense of criminal 

 wrong that oppressed him and made him unhappy for some 

 time, and at many times after, the killing of a female monkey. 

 The poor brute, so human in many of its motions, had at the time 

 ■a baby monkey in her arms, and the distress of mother and child 

 was so essentially human in its manifestations that he never 

 thought of it without a degree of pain. The monkey was a rare 

 species, particularly desirable for that reason, to complete the 

 collection of either the British Museum or the Zoological Society, 

 I have forgotten which, and it was to fill this commission that he 

 committed an act that he afterwards regarded as nearly akin to 

 murder. 



Brydges also collected quite largely, specimens of birds, but as 

 my special study in natural history caused me to take greater 

 interest in the molusca, I have better knowledge of the shells he 

 collected than of other forms. 



His field work in this connection, included not only the air- 

 breathing or land snails, but also marine and fresh-water species. 

 The peculiar Bulimi of the Atacama desert in Chili, as well as of 

 other portions of the great area included in Peru and adjoining 

 South American States, were obtained by him in great numbers, 

 and one species was named in his honor by the distinguished 

 author Pfeififer. 



The marine shells of the South American Coast from Chili 

 northward to and including the Bay of Panama, yielded a large 

 return to this indefatigable worker. 



Brydges afterward made his home in California and resided a 

 part of the time in Oakland and then in San Francisco. It was 

 during this period of his life, that we became acquainted, and I 

 frequently enjoyed the pleasure of his company. 



