INTRODUCTION xiii 



on the ways of man and beast, bird or insect, as 

 one tramped with him through the jungles on the 

 hills around Bombay during week-ends spent with 

 him at Vehar or elsewhere. He was an ideal com- 

 panion on such occasions, always at his best when 

 acting the part of The Naturalist on the Prowl. 



Mr. Aitken was born at Satara in the Bombay 

 Presidency on August 16, 1851. His father was 

 the Rev. James Aitken, missionary of the Free 

 Church of Scotland. His mother was a sister of 

 the Rev. Daniel Edward, missionary to the Jews 

 at Breslau for some fifty years. He was educated 

 by his father in India, and one can well realise the 

 sort of education he got from such parents from 

 the many allusions to the Bible and its old Testa- 

 ment characters that one constantly finds used 

 with such effect in his books. His farther education 

 was obtained at Bombay and Poona. He passed 

 M.A. and B.A. of Bombay University first on the 

 list, and won the Homejee Cursetjee prize with a 

 poem in 1880. From 1870 to 1876 he was Latin 

 Reader in the Deccan College at Poona, which 

 accounts for the extensive acquaintance with the 

 Latin classics so charmingly manifest in his writings. 

 That he was well grounded in Greek is also certain, 

 for the writer, while living in a chummery with 

 him in Bombay in 1902, saw him constantly reading 

 the Greek Testament in the mornings without the 

 aid of a dictionary. 



He entered the Customs and Salt Department 



