uries of
contact with the Indian people, a domestic animal like the cat in
Britain. When one realises the fact that this same rat is responsible
for the spread of plague in India, and that every house is full of them,
the value of this naturalist's observation is plain. Thus began an
intimacy which lasted till Eha's death in 1909.

The first time I met Mr. Aitken was at a meeting of the Free Church of
Scotland Literary Society in 1899, when he read a paper on the early
experiences, of the English in Bombay. The minute he entered the room I
recognised him from the caricatures of himself in the _Tribes_. The
long, thin, erect, bearded man was unmistakable, with a typically Scots
face lit up with the humorous twinkle one came to know so well. Many a
time in after-years has that look been seen as he discoursed, as only he
could, on the ways of man and beast, bird or insect, as one tramped
with him through the jungles on the hills around Bombay during week-ends
spent with him at Vehar or elsewhere. He was an ideal companion on such
occasions, always at his best when acting the part of _The Naturalist on
the Prowl._

Mr. Aitken was born at Satara in the Bombay Presidency on August 16,
1851. His father was the Rev. James Aitken, missionary of the Free
Church of Scotland. His mother was a sister of the Rev. Daniel Edward,
missionary to the Jews at Breslau for some fifty years. He was educated
by his father in India, and one can well realise the sort of education
he got from such parents from the many allusions to the Bible and its
old Testament characters that one constantly finds used with such effect
in his books. His farther education was obtained at Bombay and Poona. He
passed M.A. and B.A. of Bombay University first on the list, and won the
Homejee Cursetjee prize with a poem in 1880. From 1870 to 1876 he was
Latin Reader in the Deccan College at Poona, which accounts for the
extensive acquaintance with the Latin classics so charmingly manifest in
his writings. That he was well grounded in Greek is also certain, for
the writer, while living in a chummery with him in Bombay in 1902, saw
him constantly reading the Greek Testament in the mornings without the
aid of a dictionary.

He entered the Customs and Salt Department of the Government of Bombay
in April 1876, and served in Kharaghoda (the Dustypore of the _Tribes_),
Uran, North Kanara and Goa Frontier, Ratnagiri, and Bombay itself. In
May, 1903, he was appointed Chief