xlvii Obituary Notices of Fellows deceased. 
Professor wished to see. Year after year “ Alfred the Great,” as Evans used 
playfully to call him, was received with open arms not only by his host, but 
by every member of the crew. And no one could look forward with keener 
zest to these holidays than Newton, when for some weeks he could escape 
from the cares of University life to the firths and sounds of the west and 
north of Scotland, where no letters could reach him, even if he had left an 
address behind him, which he was generally careful not to do. Nowhere 
could he be seen to be more completely in his element than on board of 
the “ Aster.’ He loved the sea and its associations with such a sturdy 
affection that inclemencies of weather, by no means infrequent in those 
regions, never drew from him the least sign of impatience, or seemed 
in any degree to disturb his habitual cheeriness and his enjoyment of the 
cruise. Clad in the light-grey tweed suit which did duty on these voyages, 
but without top-coat or waterproof, he would sit for hours on some exposed 
part of the vessel, smoking innumerable pipes and watching for every variety 
of sea-fowl that might show itself either in the air or on the water. In the 
course of a few days sun, wind, rain and salt spray told on his complexion, 
which then assumed a ruddiness that would have astonished the inmates of 
Magdalene College. 
The sharpness of his eyesight in the detection of birds on the wing, even 
when he had nearly reached the age of seventy years, was always an astonish- 
ment to his companions. And the enthusiasm with which each fresh form 
was greeted by him as it flew overhead became infectious to all on board. 
Most of the crew reappeared year after year from their winter employments 
to take their places in the annual cruises, and some of them became almost as 
cunning in bird-life as their master. In successive seasons Newton was 
in this way enabled to visit almost every bay and sea-loch from the Mull of 
Cantyre to the furthest promontory of the Shetlands. 
He repeatedly anchored at St. Kilda, and had excellent opportunities of 
seeing there at the height of the nesting season the most marvellous and 
varied crowds of sea-fowl anywhere to be found among the British Islands. 
Nor were the voyages confined to the Scottish coast. He one year sailed 
round the whole of Ireland, and was thus enabled to compare the bird-haunts 
of the Irish cliffs with those of Scotland. Twice the yacht carried him round 
the Faroe Islands, and afforded him a further display of that boreal bird-life 
which from his young days had such charms for him. 
These cruises formed an important element in Newton’s life during his later 
years. He looked forward to them with almost boyish exuberance and 
delighted afterwards to recount their varied incidents. They not. only 
provided a healthful and delightful holiday, but kept him still in close 
personal touch with birds, which had been the main interest and study of his 
life. In spite of the lameness which was understood to have been the result 
of an accident during infancy, he was often the first to enter the boat which 
had been got ready for a landing on some surf-beaten rock, or for a closer 
inspection of the caves and stacks at the foot of a bird-haunted precipice. 
