Page:A veteran naturalist - being the life and work of W.B. Tegetmeier (IA veterannaturalis00richuoft).pdf/15

 feeding, as he went: and the same night after dinner, he sat down to put the fruits of his day's work on paper.

I think I may boast that I was the only one who ever persuaded him to take a holiday, when I induced him to join me on one of the visits it was my habit to pay to Loudenne in the Médoc, during the vintage. Tegetmeier called it a holiday, but brain or hand, or both, were always busy; it might be the method of breaking bul- locks to the yoke, or the capacities of the draught dogs which are used by some of the peasants in that district-but there was always something to arrest his attention and provoke detailed inquiry. It was impossible for him to be idle.

I recollect one night at Loudenne, after dinner when the rest of the party were playing cards or billiards, that Tegetmeier, breaking off in a discussion of some topic, suddenly sat up in his chair to listen intently, commanding silence with the autocracy permitted to age. Another moment and he was on his feet and through the window that opens on the terrace. Loudenne happens to lie in the track followed by birds on their southward migration, and Tegetmeier's quick ear had caught some note he could not at once identify. I have forgotten what he determined to be the species whose voices had caught his ear; but the incident struck me at the time as one more proof of my ix,