in my right hand into my mouth. Alas! it
ejected some intensely acrid fluid, which burnt my tongue so that I was
forced to spit the beetle out, which was lost, as was the third one.

I was very successful in collecting, and invented two new methods; I
employed a labourer to scrape during the winter, moss off old trees
and place it in a large bag, and likewise to collect the rubbish at the
bottom of the barges in which reeds are brought from the fens, and thus
I got some very rare species. No poet ever felt more delighted at
seeing his first poem published than I did at seeing, in Stephens'
'Illustrations of British Insects,' the magic words, "captured by C.
Darwin, Esq." I was introduced to entomology by my second cousin W.
Darwin Fox, a clever and most pleasant man, who was then at Christ's
College, and with whom I became extremely intimate. Afterwards I became
well acquainted, and went out collecting, with Albert Way of Trinity,
who in after years became a well-known archaeologist; also with H.
Thompson of the same College, afterwards a leading agriculturist,
chairman of a great railway, and Member of Parliament. It seems
therefore that a taste for collecting beetles is some indication of
future success in life!

I am surprised what an indelible impression many of the beetles which
I caught at Cambridge have left on my mind. I can remember the exact
appearance of certain posts, old trees and banks where I made a good
capture. The pretty Panagaeus crux-major was a treasure in those days,
and here at Down I saw a beetle running across a walk, and on picking it
up instantly perceived that it differed slightly from P. crux-major,
and it turned out to be P. quadripunctatus, which is only a variety or
closely allied species, differing from it very slightly in outline. I
had never seen in those old days Licinus alive, which to an uneducated
eye hardly differs from many of the black Carabidous beetles; but my
sons found here a specimen, and I instantly recognised that it was new
to me; yet I had not looked at a British beetle for the last twenty
years.

I have not as yet mentioned a circumstance which influenced my whole
career more than any other. This was my friendship with Professor
Henslow. Before coming up to Cambridge, I had heard of him from my
brother as a man who knew every branch of science, and I was accordingly
prepared to reverence him. He kept open house once every week when
all undergraduates, and some olde