February 17.
When I can get hold of any one interested in Natural History I talk away in the most garrulous manner and afterwards feel ashamed of myself for doing it.
May 15.
The Captain, in answer to my letter, advises me to join one of the ordinary professions and then follow up Nat. History as a recreation, or else join Science Classes at S. Kensington, or else by influence get a post in the Natural History Museum. But I shall see.
June 9.
During dinner hour, between morning and afternoon school, went out on the S— B— River Bank, and found another Sedge Warbler’s nest. This is the fifth I have found this year. People who live opposite on the T— V— hear them sing at night and think they are Nightingales!
June 27.
On reviewing the past egg-season, I find in all I have discovered 232 nests belonging to forty-four species. I only hope I shall be as successful with the beetle-season.
August 15.
A hot, sultry afternoon, during most of which I was stretched out on the grass beside an upturned stone where a battle royal was fought between Yellow and Black Ants. The victory went to the hardy little Yellows … By the way, I held a Newt by the tail to-day and it emitted a squeak! So that the Newt has a voice after all.
August 26.
In bed with a feverish cold. I am afraid I have very few Nat. His. observations to make. It is hard to observe anything at all when lying in bed in a dull bedroom with one small window. Gulls and Starlings pass, steam engines whistle, horses’ feet clatter down the street, and sometimes the voice of a passer-by reaches me, and often the loud laugh that speaks the vacant mind. I can also hear my own cough echoing through my head, and, by the evening, the few pages of Lubbock’s Ants, Bees, and Wasps which I struggled to get through during the day rattle through my brain till I am disgusted to find I have them by heart. The clock strikes midnight and I wait for the morning. Oh! what a weary world.
October 13.
Down with another cold. Feeling pretty useless. It’s a wonder I don’t develop melancholia.
November 6.
By 7 a.m. H— and I were down on the mudflats of the River with field-glasses, watching Waders. Ringed Plover in great numbers.
1906
January 13.
I have always had one ambition to be a great naturalist. This is, I suppose, a child’s fancy, and I can see my folly in hoping for such great things. Still, there is no reason why I should not become a learned naturalist if I study hard. I hope that whatever I do I shall do in the hope of increasing knowledge of truth and not for my own fame. This entry may suggest that I am horribly conceited. But really I am as humble as possible. I know I have advanced beyond many others, and I know I shall advance further, but why be conceited? … What a short life we have, and what heaps of glorious work to be done! Supper bell – so I am off … This reads like Isaac Walton’s funny mixtures of the sublime with the ridiculous. He discusses abstract happiness and the best salmon sauce all in one breath.
February 26.
Although it is a grand achievement to have added but one jot or tittle to the sum of human knowledge it is grander still to have added a thought. It is best for a man to try to be both poet and naturalist – not to be too much of a naturalist and so overlook the beauty of things, or too much of a poet and so fail to understand them or even perceive those hidden beauties only revealed by close observation.
March 17.
Woke up this morning covered with spots, chest inflamed, and bad cough. H— carted me down from the Attic to the Lower Bedroom, and when the Dr came he confirmed the general opinion that I had measles. It is simply disgusting, I have somewhere near 10,000 spots on me.
April 27.
Went to A— Woods, where, strange to say, I again saw Mary. But she had a tribe of friends with her, so did not speak, but watched her from a distance through my field-glasses.
May 8.
On interviewing my old friend Dr H—, found I had chickenpox. This instead of being a Diary of a Naturalist’s observationsfn1 will be one of infectious diseases.
May 28.
[Letter from Editor of Countryside to my brother saying that if the Countryside grew he might be able to offer me a billet. ‘Meanwhile he will be able to get along with his pen … he will soon make a living and in time too a name.’] This is a bit of all right. I shall always be on the look-out for a job on a N. H. Journal.
December 7.
Went to F— Duckponds. Flocks of Wigeon and Teal on the water. Taking advantage of a dip in the land managed to stalk them splendidly, and for quite a long time I lay among the long grass watching them through my field-glasses. But during the day Wild Duck are not particularly lively or interesting birds. They just rest serenely on the water like floating corks on a sheet of glass. Occasionally one will paddle around lazily. But for the most part they show a great ennui and seem so sleepy and tired that one would almost think to be able to approach and feed them out of the hand. But I moved one hand carelessly and the whole flock was up in a minute and whizzing across the river. Afterwards, at dusk, on returning to the ponds, they had come back; but now that the sun was down, those dozy, flapdoodle creatures of the afternoon were transformed into quacking, quarrelsome, blustering birds that squabbled and chivvied each other, every moment seizing the chance of a luxurious dip, flinging the ice-cold water off their backs with a shake of the tail that seemed to indicate the keenest-edged delight.
It was now quite dark. A Snipe rose at my feet and disappeared into the darkness. Coots and Moorhens clekked, and a Little Grebe grew bold and began to dive and fish quite close to me, methodically working its way upstream and so quartering out its feeding area.
A happy half-hour! Alas! I enjoy these moments the more as they recede. Not often do I realise the living present. That is always difficult. It is the mere shades – the ghosts of the dead days – that are dearest to me.
Spent my last day at school. De Quincey says (or was it Johnson?) that whenever we do anything for the last time, provided we have done it regularly for years before, we are a little melancholy, even though it has been distasteful to us … True.
December 14.
Signed my Death Warrant, i.e., my articles apprenticing me to journalism for five years. By Jove! I shall work frantically during the next five years so as to be ready at the end of them to take up a Natural History appointment.
1907
March 1.
As long as he has good health, a man need never despair. Without good health, I might keep a long while in the race, yet as the goal of my ambition grew more and more unattainable I should surely remember the words of Keats and give up: ‘There is no fiercer Hell than the failure of a great ambition.’
March 14.
Have been reading through the Chemistry Course in the Harmsworth Self-Educator and learning all the latest facts and ideas about radium. I would rather have a clear comprehension of the atom as a solar system than a private income of £100 a year. If only I had eyes to go on reading without a stop!
May 1.
Met an old gentleman in E—, a naturalist with a great contempt for the Book of Genesis. He wanted to know how the Kangaroo leapt from Australia to Palestine and how Noah fed the animals in the Ark. He rejects the Old T. theogony and advised me to read ‘Darwin and J. G. Wood’! Silly old man!
May 22.
To Challacombe and then walked across Exmoor. This is the first time I have been on Exmoor. My first experience of the Moors came bursting in on me with a flood of ideas, impressions, and delights. I cannot write out the history of to-day. It would take too long and my mind is a palpitating tangle. I have so many things to record that I cannot record one of them. Perhaps the best thing to do would be to draw up an inventory of things seen and heard and trust to my memory to fill in the details when in the future I revert to this date. Too much joy, like too much pain, simply makes me prostrate. It wounds the organism. It is too much. I shall try to forget it a
ll as quickly as possible so as to be able to return to egg-collecting and bird-watching the sooner as a calm and dispassionate observer. Yet these dear old hills. How I love them. I cannot leave them without one friendly word. I wish I were a shepherd!
At the ‘Ring of Bells’ had a long yarn with the landlord, who, as he told me the story of his life, was constantly interrupted but never disconcerted by the exuberant loyalty and devotion of his wife – a stout, florid, creamy woman, who capped every story with: ‘’Ees quite honest, sir; no ’arm at all in old Joshua.’
June 5.
A half-an-hour of to-day I spent in a punt under a copper beech out of the pouring rain listening to Lady —’s gamekeeper at A— talk about beasts and local politics – just after a visit of inspection to the Heronry in the firs on the island in the middle of the Lake. It was delightful to hear him describing a Heron killing an Eel with ‘a dap on the niddick’, helping out the figure with a pat on the nape of his thick bull neck.
July 22.
Am reading Huxley’s Crayfish. H— brought me in that magnificent aculeate Chrysis ignita.
August 15.
Met her in the market with M—. I just lifted my hat and passed on. She has the most marvellous brown eyes I have ever seen. She is perfectly self-possessed. A bad sign this.
August 18.
When I feel ill, cinema pictures of the circumstances of my death flit across my mind’s eye. I cannot prevent them. I consider the nature of the disease and all I said before I died – something heroic, of course!
August 31.
She is a ripping girl. Her eyes are magnificent. I have never seen any one better looking.
October 1.
In the afternoon dissected a Frog, following Milnes Marshall’s Book. Am studying Chemistry and attending classes at the Evening School and reading Physiology (Foster’s). Am also teaching myself German. I wish I had a microscope.
October 3.
What heaps of things to be done! How short the time to do them in! An appetite for knowledge is apt to rush one off one’s feet, like any other appetite if not curbed. I often stand in the centre of the Library here and think despairingly how impossible it is ever to become possessed of all the wealth of facts and ideas contained in the books surrounding me on every hand. I pull out one volume from its place and feel as if I were no more than giving one dig with a pick in an enormous quarry. The Porter spends his days in the Library keeping strict vigil over this catacomb of books, passing along between the shelves and yet never paying heed to the almost audible susurrus of desire – the desire every book has to be taken down and read, to live, to come into being in somebody’s mind. He even hands the volumes over the counter, seeks them out in their proper places or returns them there without once realising that a Book is a Person and not a Thing. It makes me shudder to think of Lamb’s Essays being carted about as if they were fardels.
October 16.
Dissected an Eel. Cassell’s Natural History says the Air-bladder is divided. This is not so in the one I opened. Found what I believe to be the lymphatic heart in the tail beneath the vent.
1908
March 10.
Am working frantically so as to keep up my own work with the daily business of reporting. Shorthand, typewriting, German, Chemistry classes, Electricity lectures, Zoology (including dissections) and field work. Am reading Mosenthal’s Muscle and Nerve.
April 7.
Sectioned a Leech. H— has lent me a hand microtome and I have borrowed an old razor. My table in the Attic is now fitted up quite like a Laboratory. I get up every morning at 6 a.m. to dissect. Have worked at the Anatomy of Dytiscus, Lumbricus, another Leech, and Petromyzon fluviatilis all collected by myself. The ‘branchial basket’ of Petromyzon interested me vastly. But it’s a brute to dissect.fn2
May 1.
Cycled to the Lighthouse at the mouth of the Estuary. Underneath some telegraph wires, picked up a Landrail in excellent condition. The colour of the wings is a beautiful warm chestnut. While sweeping the sandhills with my field-glasses in search of Ring Plover, which nest there in the shingle beaches, I espied a Shelduck (Tadorna) squatting on a piece of level ground. On walking up cautiously, found it was dead – a Drake in splendid plumage and quite fresh and uninjured. Put him in my poacher’s pocket, alongside of the Landrail. My coat looked rather bulgy, for a Shelduck is nearly as big as a Goose. Heard a Grasshopper Warbler – a rare bird in North —. Later, after much patient watching, saw the bird in a bramble bush, creeping about like a mouse.
On the sea-shore picked up a number of Sea Mice (Aphrodite) and bottled them in my jar of 70 per cent., as they will come in useful for dissection. Also found the cranium of a Scyllium, which I will describe later on.
Near the Lighthouse watched some fishermen bring in a large Salmon in a seine net worked from the shore. It was most exciting. Cycled down three miles of hard sand with the wind behind me to the village where I had tea and – as if nothing could stay to-day’s good luck – met Margaret —. I showed her one by one all my treasures – Rail, Duck, Skull, Sea Mice, etc., and felt like Thomas Edward, beloved of Samuel Smiles. To her I must have appeared a very ridiculous person.
‘How do you know it’s the skull of a dog-fish?’ she asked, incredulous.
‘How do I know anything?’ I said, a little piqued.
On arriving home found T— awaiting me with the news that he had discovered a Woodpecker’s nest. When will the luck cease? I have never had such a flawless ten hours in le grand air. These summer days eat into my being. The sea has been roaring into my ears and the sun blazing down so that even the backs of my hands are sunburnt. And then: those coal-black eyes. Ah! me, she is pretty.
May 2.
Dissected the Sheldrake. Very entertained to discover the extraordinary asymmetry of the syrinx …
May 3.
Dissected Corncrake, examining carefully the pessulus, bronchidesmus (incomplete), tympani-form and semi-lunar membranes of a very interesting syrinx …
May 6.
Dissected one of the Sea Mice. It has a remarkable series of hepatic ducts running into the alimentary canal as in Nudibranchs …
May 9.
Spring in the Woods
Among the Oak Saplings we seemed enveloped in a cloud of green. The tall green grasses threw up a green light against the young green of the Oaks, and the sun managed to trickle through only here and there. Bevies of swinging bluebells grew in patches among the grass. Overhead in the oaks I heard secret leaf whispers – those little noiseless noises. Birds and trees and flowers were secretive and mysterious like expectant motherhood. All the live things plotted together, having the same big business in hand. Out in the sunlit meadows, there was a different influence abroad. Here everything was gay, lively, irresponsible. The brook prattled like an inconsequential schoolgirl. The Marsh Marigolds in flamboyant yellow sunbonnets played ring-a-ring-a-roses.
An Oak Sapling should make an elderly man avuncular. There are so many tremendous possibilities about a well-behaved young oak that it is tempting to put a hand upon its shoulder and give some seasoned, timberly advice.
June 1.
A Small Red Viper
Went to L— Sessions. After the Court rose, I transcribed my notes quickly and walked out to the famous Valley of Rocks which Southey described as the ribs of the old Earth poking through. At the bottom of one of the hills saw a snake, a Red Viper. Put my boot on him quickly so that he couldn’t get away and then recognised him as a specimen of what I consider to be the fourth species of British Serpent – Vipera rubra. The difficulty was to know how to secure him. This species is more ferocious than the ordinary V. bera, and I did not like the idea of putting my hand down to seize him by the neck. I stood for some time with my foot so firmly pressed down on its back that my leg ached and I began to wonder if I had been bitten. I held on and presently hailed a baker’s cart coming along the road. The man got out and ran across the grass to where I stood. I showed him what I had b
eneath my boot and he produced a piece of string which I fastened around the snake’s tail and so gently hauled the little brute up. It already appeared moribund, but I squashed its head on the grass with my heel to make certain. After parting with the baker, to whom all thanks be given, I remember that Adders are tenacious of life and so I continue to carry him at string’s length and occasionally wallop him against a stone. As he was lifeless I wrapped him in paper and put him in my pocket – though to make assurance doubly sure I left the string on and let its end hang out over my pocket. So home by a two hours’ railway journey with the adder in the pocket of my overcoat and the overcoat on the rack over my head. Settled down to the reading of a book on Spinoza’s Ethics. At home it proved to be quite alive, and, on being pulled out by the string, coiled up on the drawing-room floor and hissed in a fury, to my infinite surprise. Finished him off with the poker and so spoilt the skin.
The Journal of a Disappointed Man Page 2
