My own acquaintance with him dated from the same time 

 as Wilson's — his undergraduate days — when I was pleased 

 to see some papers appearing on British Mammals, and 

 hastened to press their author into the service of technical 

 mammalogy, by enlisting his help for the National Museum. 

 For some years while "eating his dinners" for the Bar, 

 Barrett- Hamilton worked regularly at the Museum, taking 

 for his speciality the Palaearctic Mammalia, in the same way 

 as Bonhote was then doing for the Oriental ones, De Winton, 

 Schwann, and Wroughton working in succession at those of 

 Africa. During this period he wrote such monographs as 

 were possible on the material then available, and thus paved 

 the way for the general work on British mammals on which 

 he early set his heart, and which he lived to carry so far that 

 it will remain a monument to his memory, even if the final 

 parts have to be completed by others. It was his early work 

 on European mammals that made it evident that much more 

 material was needed to deal adequately with the subject, and 

 firstly by the late Lord Lilford's generosity, and later by 

 more systematic and official endeavour, the great collection 

 was built up on which Mr G. S. Miller's Mammals of 

 Western Europe was based, this book in its turn being 

 constantly called on for help in Barrett - Hamilton's own 

 especial work. 



Full of the spirit of adventure, Barrett- Hamilton's scientific 

 life has been interrupted by several missions abroad. These 

 were either in the cause of science, as when he went to the 

 Alaskan seas to study the life-history of seals, and again on 

 the last fatal expedition, or in the national service of his country. 

 For he went to South Africa to serve in the Boer War, an 

 occasion when he by no means forgot his scientific tastes, as 

 he made considerable collections at the dreary outpost where 

 he spent most of his time. 



Of late years, after he had married and settled down on 

 his father's estate in Ireland, his visits to the Museum 



