lled him with its wonders, and was the subject of many letters.

Side by side with his hobby of natural history went his love of sport:
it was impossible for him to separate the one from the other. Fishing
was his chief delight; he pursued it with equal keenness in the chalk
streams of Hampshire, in the salmon rivers of Ireland, in the desolate
tarns on the Welsh mountains. In the visitors' book of the inn at
Pen-y-gwryd, Tom Hughes, Tom Taylor, and he left alternate quatrains of
doggerel to celebrate their stay, written _currente calamo_, as the
spirit prompted them. This is Charles Kingsley's first quatrain:

I came to Pen-y-gwryd in frantic hopes of slaying
Grilse, salmon, three-pound red-fleshed trout
and what else there's no saying:
But bitter cold and lashing rain and black nor'-eastern skies, sir,
Drove me from fish to botany, a sadder man and wiser.

Each had his disappointment through the weather, which each expressed in
verse; but it took more than bad weather to damp the spirits of three
such ardent open-air enthusiasts. Hunting was another favourite sport,
though he rarely indulged himself in this luxury, and only when he could
do so without much expense. But whenever a friend gave him a mount,
Kingsley was ready to follow the Berkshire hounds, and with his
knowledge of the country he was able to hold his own with the best.

Let us try to imagine him then as he walked about the lanes and commons
of Eversley in middle life, a spare upright figure, above the middle
height, with alert step, informal but not slovenly in dress, with no
white tie or special mark of his profession. His head was one to attract
notice anywhere with the grand hawk-like nose, firm mouth, and flashing
eye. The deep lines furrowed between the brows gave his face an almost
stern expression which his cheery conversation soon belied. He might be
carrying a fishing-rod or a bottle of medicine for a sick parishioner,
or sometimes both: his faithful Dandie Dinmont would be in attendance
and perhaps one of his children walking at his side. His walk would be
swift and eager, with his eye wandering restlessly around to observe all
that he passed: 'it seemed as if no bird or beast or insect, scarcely a
cloud in the sky, passed by him unnoticed, unwelcomed.' So too with
humanity--in breadth of sympathy he resembled 'the Shirra', who became
known to every wayfarer between Teviot and Tweed. Gipsy boy, farm-hand,
old grand