eing coached for this examination by James Stuart--the only
man, I imagine, who ever made mathematics entertaining and even amusing
to an unmathematical pupil.

I then had a clear year in which I could devote myself to Natural
Science. I did not succeed in finding a coach who was of any use to me.
But in Comparative Anatomy I did a fair amount of undirected work: in
this way I dissected a good many creatures such as slugs and snails and
freshwater mussels, dragonflies, etc. I have a dim recollection of
catching the mussels in the Cam with Gordon Wigan, the son of the
celebrated actor--and indeed that kindly personage joined us in one of
our boating expeditions.

On leaving Cambridge I went to St George's Hospital with the intention of
becoming a practising physician. But happily for me the Fates willed
otherwise. The late Dr Cavafy of St George's Hospital urged me to learn
something of Histology, and sent me to Dr Klein, whose pupil I had the
good fortune to become at the Brown Institute. I have elsewhere {67}
said something of my debt of gratitude to Dr Klein. Under his guidance I
produced a paper which served as a thesis for my M.B. degree. I had
another interesting experience during my time at St George's. I used to
go to the Zoological Society's dissecting-room, where the late Dr Garrod
(the Prosector) allowed me to investigate some of the daily quota of dead
animals. But it was not of any real educational value, I fancy. Still
it may have helped the impetus of Klein's teaching to suggest that
medicine {68a} should be given up and that I should become the assistant
to my father.

The old nursery at Down had been turned into a laboratory, and when (on
the death of my wife) I came to live in the house of my parents, they
converted the billiard-room into a sitting-room for me.

During the following years I went to work under Sachs at Wurzburg and
afterwards under De Bary at Strassburg. Sachs was most kind and helpful,
and under his direction I contributed a small paper to his _Arbeiten_. I
made some good friends at Wurzburg--Stahl, who is now Professor of Botany
at Jena; Kunkel, the Pharmacologist, who died young; the Finlander
Elfving, who is now Professor of Botany at Helsingfors; and Goebel, now
the well-known Professor of Botany at Munich. He and I walked side by
side to receive our degrees at the 1909 meeting in Cambridge. {68b} I
had the great pleasure of seeing Elfving on the same occasion, and