and his Ornithological Work. 721 
the no less fearful foes of fever, famine, and flood, like the 
fighters of old he carried his gods into the battle, and many 
must have been the times when he took heart from his 
remembrance and intimate knowledge of the lives of these 
great ideals, these heroes of his boyhood. 
Interesting witnesses to his veneration for these great 
dead remain round the walls of his museum at W ilsley, in 
an almost exhaustive collection of their histories and lives 
and in many fine old Napoleonic engravings. 
Although Boyd Alexander’s name will go down to 
posterity pre-eminently as an explorer, from the results of 
whose travels has been gathered much store of knowledge 
in various sciences, it must be interesting to ornithologists 
to know that it was his passion for their own special science 
that formed the mainspring of all his achievements. In 
his book, which relates the history of his great journey, 
c From the Niger to the Nile/ he writes :—“ Every explorer 
looks upon the map of that part of the world which 
particularly calls him, and endeavours to find a spot that 
still affords opportunity for the special powers he may 
possess for finding out the secrets that it hides. The 
mountaineer sets his heart upon the ascent of some 
unconquered height .... Other travellers distinguish 
themselves in that form of exploration which depends for its 
success upon a great knowledge of peoples and languages .... 
The humanitarian follows the map as it is expressed by the 
distribution of the tribes ; while geographers leave the 
featureless desert on one side and take their ways by hills 
that make beautiful undulating shadings, and by rivers that 
embroider with blue veinings, and by lakes that shine like 
jewels—upon the map .... All these facts [referring to 
the little-known region of Lake Chad] attracted me, and 
there was the character of the fauna to be ascertained, with 
the hope that a locality, showing geographical peculiarities, 
might also reveal marked differences in its fauna. This last 
idea naturally took a strong hold on me, for I will now 
confess that my ruling passion is ornithology, and all my 
