the same
age at Shrewsbury Grammar School, where, he says, "the school as a means
of education to me was simply a blank." It is therefore interesting to
notice, side by side, as it were, the occupation which each boy found
for himself out of school hours, and which in both instances proved of
immense value in their respective careers in later life.

Darwin, even at this early age, found his "taste for natural history,
and more especially for collecting," well developed. "I tried," he says,
"to make out the names of plants, and collected all sorts of things,
shells, seals, franks, coins and minerals. The passion for collecting
which leads a man to be a systematic naturalist ... was very strong in
me, and was clearly innate, as none of my sisters or brothers ever had
this taste."

He also speaks of himself as having been a very "simple little fellow"
by the manner in which he was either himself deceived or tried to
deceive others in a harmless way. As an instance of this, he remembered
declaring that he could "produce variously coloured polyanthuses and
primroses by watering them with certain coloured fluids," though he knew
all the time it was untrue. His feeling of tenderness towards all
animals and insects is revealed in the fact that he could not
remember--except on one occasion--ever taking more than one egg out of a
bird's nest; and though a keen angler, as soon as he heard that he
could kill the worms with salt and water he never afterwards "spitted a
living worm, though at the expense, probably, of some loss of success!"

Nothing thwarted young Darwin's intense joy and interest in collecting
minerals and insects, and in watching and making notes upon the habits
of birds. In addition to this wholesome outdoor hobby, the tedium of
school lessons was relieved for him by reading Shakespeare, Byron and
Scott--also a copy of "Wonders of the World" which belonged to one of
the boys, and to which he always attributed his first desire to travel
in remote countries, little thinking how his dreams would be fulfilled.

Whilst Charles Darwin occupied himself with outdoor sport and
collecting, with a very moderate amount of reading thrown in at
intervals, Wallace, on the contrary, devoured all the books he could
get; and fortunately for him, his father having been appointed Librarian
to the Hertford Town Library, Alfred had access to all the books that
appealed to his mental appetite; and these, especially the historical
no