This disappointment, however, had its silver lining. Had he accepted this two years' appointment, it would have been more difficult, and perhaps impossible, for him to accompany Captain Scott in the Discovery, on their first expedition to the Antarctic. On the last day of July, 1901, the Discovery left the London Docks and slowly dropped down the Thames. Three weeks before Wilson had married Oriana Souper, the daughter of the Rev. F. A. Souper, now resident at Comberton, near Cambridge. With that heroism, and above all with that patience of waiting which is so often the gift of great women, the bride acquiesced and aided in every way her husband's adventure on both his Antarctic voyages. The Discovery came in sight of the great Antarctic continent on the evening of January 8, 1902. The record of the voyage and of Wilson's part in it has been told in the eloquent words of Captain Scott. I can only add that, if there were two things in his life that Wilson was really proud of, they were that Scott had asked him to be one of the three that made the furthest-south' expedition and that Scott had asked him to accompany him on his second voyage to the Antarctic. As far as I recollect, we saw something of Wilson in Cambridge before he sailed in the Discovery; on his return he was certainly often with us, using the Library, the Laboratories, and the Museums in working up his results. I think he was one of the best lecturers I ever listened to, and shall never forget a lecture he gave us, shortly after his return, on Penguins.' Of course he had much to tell us that was new to science, but it was his mastery of the subject, his brilliant illustrations, and his quiet but genuine humour, that made the whole thing so supreme a success. For some time he was now busy in lecturing about the country, and in working out the results of the Antarctic voyage. He wrote the section dealing with the birds and the mammals in the Official Report of the Natural History Results of Captain Scott's first voyage, and spent much time at the British Museum, where, as everywhere else, he was very popular. In the autumn of 1905 he had been appointed, at a most modest salary, field observer, physiologist and anatomist to the recently established Grouse Disease Inquiry, and from that date until five years later, when he sailed in the Terra Nova, I saw him very frequently. The Inquiry was no easy one. Nothing was accurately known about the grouse, either in health or in disease, and it was long before we could either retrace our footsteps from the blind alleys our predecessors had laid down, or free ourselves from the preconceived prejudices of those better skilled in shooting grouse than in keeping them alive. I do not think the Inquiry could have had a better man, or even one so good. His singleness of purpose and his directness of address, coupled with the undoubted accuracy of his knowledge, commanded at first the respect, and very soon the sympathy both of the moor-owner and of his keepers. Wilson was an indefatigable worker, and, besides visiting almost every important moor in Scotland, and many in England, he dissected with his own hands. but just under 2000 grouse, and recorded under a dozen different headings the physical and pathological conditions of the bird with a minuteness that would put the most enthusiastic panel-doctor to shame. He thought nothing of sitting up all night on the moor to obtain a better knowledge of the sleeping and waking habits of the grouse and her chicks. I am reminded that he slept one May night on a Forfarshire moor in order to obtain one or two drops of dew for the microscope. It was bitterly cold, but there was no dew. Many and many a time I have rushed up North to spend a few days with Wilson in his laboratory, hastily improvised in some Highland inn, or in a station hotel (we were not at all popular in station hotels), or in the gun-room of some moor-owner's castle. I think Wilson worked as hard as ever man did. We made many mistakes, we followed many false scents, but we were always learning, and, in the end, his work, aided as it was by the constant care and criticism of the chairman, Lord Lovat, and of the secretary, Mr. A. S. Leslie, not only elucidated the cause of adult grousedisease, but threw a flood of light on the relations of the bird to its surroundings, and on the economics of the grouse-moor. Those were good days; I would they were back again. 1 Of the two quarto volumes which form the 'Report' of the Inquiry, Wilson wrote quite one-third, and the beautiful coloured plates were all drawn by him. He left, on his second Antarctic voyage, about a year before the 'Report' appeared: some of his unfinished work he took with him, and posted back to us from the several stopping-places; others he left to us to prepare for press. I shall never forget with what pleasure we sent out the volumes to meet him at the base-camp-a little nervous, perhaps, as to what 1 Dr. Leiper greatly assisted the Inquiry in this, and Dr. Fantham did the same by describing the cause of the mortality of grouse-chicks. he would think of the way we had edited two or three of his chapters, which he had been forced to leave unfinished, but knowing how eagerly he looked forward to handling the volumes. In his last letter to me (dated October 29, 1911) written two days before the Polar party started on their 'southern trek,' he says: 'I shall be frightfully keen to see if the mail brings me a copy of the Grouse Report!' The mail did bring the copy, but he never saw it. The plates in the 'Report' hardly do justice to Wilson's skill as an artist. Although for the most part they are unusually successful examples of the three-colour process, the reproductions naturally fall far behind the originals. The same is true of the illustrations in Mr. Barrett-Hamilton's edition of Bell's British Mammals,' for much of the charm of the originals has evaporated. With these drawings he took infinite pains, keeping bats in his bedroom to observe them day and night, visiting us near Windsor Forest to draw the deer and voyaging to the Shetlands to sketch whales. Wilson's sense of colour had been developed by a patient and for some time a daily study of Turner in the National Gallery. He always had a sense of form, and he had a real gift of putting on paper what his clear, calm eyes saw. He could in a subtle way indicate life or its absence; motion or rest; in his brilliant sketches of the Antarctic, you could see the weather. 'Prove all His scientific work was on the same high level. things, and hold fast to that which is good,' was his habit. He made no revolutionary discoveries, he opened out no new realms of knowledge, but within the limits he set himself, his work was of a high standard, and, like everything about him, thoroughly sound. The time has not come to write of the last long journey, but I cannot withhold a few lines written about Wilson by Captain Scott, dated early in October 1911, the month they started their walk to the Pole: 'October 1. Winter Quarters. 'I never saw him looking fitter than he does at this moment, after the winter darkness and one of the hardest sledge journeys on record. I will not dwell on his value to the Expedition because you must know it, and I hope you realise how much I appreciate it. The past year has only increased the general affection and esteem in which he is held by all . . . . "Even to you I have no words to express all that he has been to me, and to the Expedition-the wisest of counsellors, the pleasantest of companions and the loyalest of friends.' Amongst his many fine qualities, his quiet simplicity and directness and his absolute loyalty and honesty of purpose stand out. He was not blunt or abrupt in any way, but it simply never occurred to him to finesse or-well, to use the methods familiar to politicians. His disposition was unusually serene, steadfast, and happy. I have never known him angry, and hardly ever put out. He never fussed. If something went wrong, and he could not put it right again, he simply did the next best thing, often without a comment. Though the most modest of men, he knew-but he never exaggerated-his own powers, nor did he under-estimate them. With his frail body and his artist's hands he travelled and he worked throughout those long Antarctic voyages, but it was the brain and the will-power, which he knew and he alone knew, that carried him along. He was singularly unselfish, and although he enjoyed solving problems in Natural History or in Pathology, he never thought of his own reputation. He never sought recognition; in fact, I doubt if it ever occurred to him that his work merited recognition in any form. In the best sense of the word he was an optimist, and never worried or troubled about the future. I cannot remember that he ever talked about religion; yet if it be religion to dedicate one's life to whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report -if this be religion, I have never known a more religious man. Both morally and physically he was fearless; and here again I do not think it ever occurred to him that anyone could be otherwise. Like his religion, his high courage was part of himself, inherent in him. To him death was but a step, a change to something further, something better, and the death of a relative or friend hardly ruffled his trustful serenity. Of his own death I cannot write. Browning foresaw it: 'Fear death ?-to feel the fog in my throat, When the snows begin, and the blasts denote The power of the night, the press of the storm, Where he stands, the Arch Fear in a visible form, For the journey is done and the summit attained, Though a battle 's to fight ere the guerdon be gained, I was ever a fighter, so- one fight more, The best and the last! I would hate that death bandaged my eyes, and forbore, And bade me creep past. No! let me taste the whole of it, fare like my peers The heroes of old. Bear the brunt, in a minute pay glad life's arrears For sudden the worst turns the best to the brave, And the elements' rage, the fiend-voices that rave, Shall change, shall become first a peace out of pain, O thou soul of my soul! I shall clasp thee again, |