MARINE BIOLOGICAL STATION AT PORT ERIN. 53 



Natural History. I well remember, and can recall, 

 amongst the sprinkling of students, the serious but kindly 

 face, largely covered with, at that time, a dense black beard. 

 At the end of the lecture he joined me, with pleasant 

 remarks, and invited me to his house in TVaverley 

 Road. From that time we were close friends, and our 

 intercourse has been very constant and very intimate both 

 in Liverpool and on expeditions, and in country quarters, 

 such as Bute, Arran, Tarbert and Wales, during the last 

 twenty-two years. I found him an ardent field-naturalist, 

 with a wide general knowledge of biology, and a 

 specialist's acquaintance with the construction and use of 

 the microscope. He was ready for the more serious 

 original scientific work to which he presently turned. 

 His position at that time in the local scientific circles was 

 fitly indicated by his selection, in April, 1882, to attend 

 Darwin's funeral in Westminster Abbey as the repre- 

 sentative of the Liverpool scientific societies. 



A few years later Thompson was one of the founders 

 of the Biological Society and of the Liverpool Marine 

 Biology Committee, and it is in connection with the latter, 

 and during the last twenty years, that most of his original 

 scientific work has been done. It has long been a 

 characteristic feature of English science that really 

 distinguished work has come, not only from those profes- 

 sionally engaged, but also from serious amateurs — men 

 who have the scientific spirit and training, but do the 

 work solely for the love of research, and for the 

 intellectual interests and the sesthetie beauties of nature 

 which their investigations reveal. This has been 

 especially the case in Natural History, and Thompson was 

 one of these serious amateurs who did good work of lasting 

 value. Like Dr. George Johnston, Alder and Hancock, 

 Hincks, H. B. Brady, and Grwyn -Jeffreys — to mention 



