direction of the wind. The elaborately arranged columns, full of
symbols and figures, look very quaint in the careful boyish
handwriting, and must have absorbed much of his spare time.

Insects, however, had the greatest attraction for him. He writes in
his journal: "I have made a great improvement in the study of
entomology, to which I have an ardent attachment." And a little
later: "I find I have not time to study so many things. I am afraid
that I will not be able to carry on entomology and botany together;
but entomology I will not give up." He had been studying
"electricity, astronomy, botany, conchology, and geology." At the
age of sixteen he wrote: "I feel a longing, a natural desire, to
explore and understand the ways of science. I am ambitious of doing
something that will deserve the praise or excite the admiration of
mankind." When the praise and admiration came, no one could have
been more indifferent to them than himself. Nature, his "nurse,"
had become his queen; and never was there a more devoted,
whole-hearted subject, a more simple-minded follower of science for
its own sake without any thought of the honour or glory that might
accrue thereby.

On August 10, 1849, he records: "I have been thinking for the last
few days about fixing on some subject or pursuit on which to devote
my life, as it is of no use first starting one subject and then
another, thus learning nothing. After giving it a good deal of
consideration, I have determined on studying 'Natural History,' not
confining myself to any one branch of that vast subject. As this is
a subject on which I intend to devote my leisure hours during the
greater part if not the whole of my lifetime, I consider it to be
of the greatest importance that I should lay a good foundation for