266 WORK AT CAMBRIDGE 



Vertebrata, but I am by no means sure, for I certainly 

 took no notes, and I do not think that any of us paid 

 much attention to them, though there was that about 

 the lecturer that made what is now termed " rotting " 

 or anything like bad behaviour quite out of the question. 

 They were delivered with a sort of professed perfunctori- 

 ness. He seemed to say aloud, with the old-world 

 courtesy that was so characteristic of him, " Gentlemen, 

 I am aware that this must seem to you rather dull 

 stuff, but it is my duty to deliver it, and I must ask 

 you to be kind enough to listen to it with patience." 

 He read these effusions standing and partly propped up 

 by a high stool ; now making hasty dives at a tumbler 

 of water, of which he would absorb a couple of quick 

 gulps, now mopping a heated brow with a large handker- 

 chief. I feel sure he hated these lectures. If only he 

 had taken bird migi^ation or distribution as his subject, 

 how different it would have been ! But in those days 

 such studies would have been considered trifling, and 

 altogether beneath the horizon of professorial teaching. 



I suppose it was at the opening lecture that we 

 inscribed our names. Seeing mine, he inquired what 

 relation I was to a member of my family whom he knew. 

 I told him. He then asked, I suppose by way of some- 

 thing to say, where I had spent the Long Vacation. 

 My reply of " Lapland " fairly galvanised him. 

 " What ! Lapland ! What did you go there for ? " 

 " Well, sir, chiefly after birds." " Birds ! Look here, 

 what are you doing on Sunday next? Come to my 

 rooms in Magdalene at half-past eight." And 

 thus — now, alas ! nearly fifty years ago — began our 

 friendship. 



Nowadays, of course, an invitation such as this is 

 common enough, and I understand that the under- 

 graduate occasionally even calls his tutor by his 

 Christian name. But this was certainly not the fashion 

 at the period of which I speak. The don in those days 

 as a rule only bade you to his rooms for the purpose 

 of gating you, so I was proportionately impressed and 



