14 
WILLIAM KEITH BROOKS 
nomena. And his life was such that it made all around him feel 
in some measure the charm of the naturalist's calling. 
Although the great and lasting debt, which all who came under 
his instruction owe to him, springs from the inspiration that un- 
consciously passed from him to us, it was his personal qualities, 
his gentleness, his kindliness, his thoughtfulness of others, as well 
as the quaint humor that characterized so many of his acts and 
sayings, that humanized and endeared him to his students. His 
capacity for sympathy was never shown more strikingly than dur- 
ing those dark days that followed upon the death of Professor 
Humphrey and Dr. Conant from yellow fever after the disastrous 
expedition to Jamaica in 1897. All who were there at the time 
will recall how deeply moved he was, nor will any of us be likely 
to forget the simple sincerity of the man as he stood among us and 
talked of the nobility of the sacrifice of a life for the sake of others 
and for the cause of science. 
I think my earhest definite recollection of Professor Brooks is 
of seeing him walk into the lecture room in an undergraduate 
class wearing a long rubber overcoat which he proceeded at once to 
use on himself for the purpose of illustrating the morphological rela- 
tions of the squid's mantle, while holding out the upturned collar 
to demonstrate the position of the siphon. I still have my notes 
on his undergraduate lectures and in reading them over I am 
struck afresh by the recollection of their clearness and beauty, 
although the subjects upon which he talked before the class fol- 
lowed each other without apparent order or relation. As I later 
learned while acting as his assistant, he was apt to lecture upon 
anything that he happened to be thinking about at the time, not 
infrequently changing the subject at the very last moment, to 
the dismay of the assistant who would then have to prepare has- 
tily an entirely different set of charts and specimens from those 
which he had been previously instructed to have ready. 
When I began my graduate work in zoology, I was, like every 
one else at the start, cast adrift, to sink or swim ; and for all one 
knew at the time, Brooks seemed absolutely indifferent as to the 
outcome. He had given me a bottle containing a few shriveled 
and- collapsed specimens of Doliolum, with instructions to work 
