Page:Makers of British botany.djvu/202

 162 Besides the tiny harvest mice, he at one time possessed for some two or three years two "pet" Jersey toads, or the great crapaud. They were kept in a wire-gauze cage, and it was our delight as children to feed these monsters every morning. A butterfly net swept over the lawn was sure to secure all sorts of flying and jumping creatures. The lid of the cage being lifted up, the net was turned inside out over the toads, and quickly closed. Then began the matutinal breakfast. They would never notice anything that did not move. Seeing, however, say a grasshopper, stir, the toad would stalk it like a cat after a bird; and when within tongue-shot, out came its long tongue like a flash of lightning, and the grasshopper vanished in the flash. Worms were a great delight. Snapping up one in the middle, the two ends were carefully cleaned from earth by passing them between the toes two or three times; then followed a mighty gulp, and all was over.

Shell-traps were always laid about the grass, consisting of slates, under which there would generally be found a various crop of sorts. I have now two glass cases containing all the shells, land and fresh-water, of Hitcham, mounted by the Professor himself. A reward was offered for every specimen of a Helix with the shell reversed. They are very rare, but one was brought by a little boy who discovered it, for he found he was unable to get his thumb into the opening the right way when playing at "conquerors." So he got the only sixpence earned in twenty-three years that the Professor was incumbent of Hitcham. The collection of butterflies was always being added to; now and then a rare one would appear at Hitcham, as, e.g. the Camberwell Beauty. The Professor was walking in the Rectory garden with the late Judge Eagle, of Bury St Edmunds, when one settled on a wall. Mr Eagle stood sentry while the Professor ran indoors for his net. It need hardly be added that the specimen still rests in the collection, which passed into the possession of his son-in-law, the late Sir J. D. Hooker, F.R.S., etc.

I cannot do better than conclude with my uncle's words at the end of his Memoir:—"When a good man dies the world does not cease to benefit from those labours of love which he