Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 27.djvu/278

264 and his life was too short to compass everything. But he opened a new door to the vertebrate world; and, if the question be asked how it was possible to give so large and expensive a book permanent currency with the German public, the answer must be found in the sympathetic element of the work, which brought a new world so near to us, and so inspired it that the soul-life of animals is no longer an empty sound.

It was privilege to grow up among the most favorable circumstances conceivable for a nascent naturalist. He was born on the 2d of February, 1829, at Renthendorf, near Neustadt, on the Orla. He could have had no better guide to his future course than his father, the pastor of the parish, who as "Father Brehm" was known among the older ornithologists of his time as indisputably one of the most distinguished observers of the habits of birds. What the no less eminent ornithologist Z. F. Naumann was for Anhalt and its vicinity, Christian L. Brehm was for Thuringia, a favorite region for all lovers of birds, and full of inspiration for youth having a taste for natural history. This inspiration could not fail to work deeply in so receptive a spirit as the son possessed, and he thus grew up literally in an ornithological atmosphere, in which his especial taste and aptitude later took firm root. Thus were early developed in him the future ornithologist and the self-reliant, independent spirit. In 1847 the famous and wealthy African traveler, Baron J. W. von Müller, proposed that he go with him to Africa as his ornithological assistant. It was known that young Brehm was already not only an accomplished ornithologist, who was acquainted with the voices of all the birds, but that he was also a splendid shot, who had himself contributed many precious additions to his father's great collection of European birds, which was estimated to contain nine thousand specimens. Brehm had just passed his abiturient examinations when Müller's invitation came to him; and, as his father had nothing to say in opposition to it, he immediately made his own conditions and decided to go. The journey was to be undertaken at once, and to last five years. Brehm did not return till 1852, after he had explored Egypt, Nubia, and Eastern Soudan, countries that have always had great attractions for zoölogists, especially for ornithologists. Here is the resort of many birds which migrate from Europe to seek a winter home in summer-land, and also the abode of a multitude of African species which never leave that quarter of the world. Naumann also sent his apostles hither at about the same time, and one of them, the youthful Vierthaler, who has long been resting in Nubian soil, described with much spirit, in "Die Natur" for 1852, the kind of a bird paradise which he found on the banks of the White and the Blue Nile. It was given to young Brehm alone comprehensively to depict this life in his first publication, "Reise Skizzen aus Nordost Africa" ("Travel Sketches from Northeastern Africa"), three volumes, Jena, 1853. After he had attended the University of Jena, and had subsequently