For The Pursuit Brought One Into
Relations Not Only With Interesting Birds And Beasts, But With Men.
There was Mr. H. of the Linnean Society, whose waxed moustache curled
round upon itself like an ammonite. A great writer of books was Mr. H.,
and a great collector of them. He collected, among other things, a rare
monograph belonging to me and dealing with the former distribution of
the beaver in Bavaria (we were both absorbed in beavers). Nothing I
could do or say would induce him to disgorge it again; he had always
lent it to a friend, who was just on the point of returning it, etc.
etc. Bitterly grieved, I not only forgave him, but put him into
communication with my friend Dr. Girtanner of St. Gallen, another
beaver - and marmot - specialist. It stimulated his love of Swiss zoology
to such an extent that he straightway borrowed a still rarer pamphlet of
mine, J. J. Tschudi's "Schweizer Echsen," which I likewise never saw
again. What an innocent one was! Where is now the man who will induce me
to lend him such books?
In those days I held a student's ticket at the South Kensington Museum,
an institution I enriched with specimens of rana graeca from near Lake
Stymphalus, and lizards from the Filfla rock, and toads from a volcanic
islet (toads, says Darwin, are not found on volcanic islets), and slugs
from places as far apart as Santorin and the Shetlands and Orkneys,
whither I went in search of Asterolepis and the Great Skua.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 225 of 291
Words from 59680 to 59936
of 77809
