HIS FIRST MUSEUM 3 



and was herself well read in the best English 

 literature, and delighted in reading aloud, which she 

 did remarkably well. 



From his earliest years Flower was devoted to 

 natural history ; his brother, Charles, writes in his 

 diary : — 



In June 1841 we all went to Scarborough and spent the 

 summer — till the 29th Sept. ; this was a delightful time. The 

 museum at Scarborough was a great source of interest to us, and 

 we used to go long walks "geologising,"' carrying our dinners 

 with us. In one of these walks we met with Dr. Amory, who 

 took an interest and helped us in our scientific pursuits. William 

 learnt to stuff birds, and acquired a taste for studies which after- 

 wards led to his becoming a surgeon. 



Of his first " museum " and collections he has 

 written in Essays on Museums, a few paragraphs of 

 which may well be introduced here. 



My first " museum " was contained in a large, flat, shallow 

 box with a lid, and I made cardboard trays which filled and 

 fitted the bottom of the box, and kept the various specimens 

 separate. Everything was carefully labelled, and there was also a 

 manuscript catalogue in a copy-book. When the box was out- 

 grown it was superseded by a small cabinet with drawers, then 

 by a cupboard ; but before I had left the parental home for 

 college, an entire small room was dignified by the name of my 

 " Museum." It was the love of curatorship which thus grew up 

 within me, without the remotest external influence or inherited 

 predisposition towards it, that determined my after career, and 

 led to such success as I have met with in it My boyish fondness 

 for dissecting animals and preparing their skeletons at that time 

 could find no nearer outlet in any academic career than in the 

 pursuits of a medical student, and the anatomical museum of my 

 college was at first to me a subject of much greater interest than 

 the wards of the hospital — so much so, in fact, that while still 



