The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1881-03-09
E%ccentrlcities of q Noted Naturalist.

eStlnR account OF the late TTauK DUCK
land, the famous naturalist His zeal
frequently led him into i%mprudences
which would have told severely on q
less robust constitution, and which per-
haps had the effect Of shortening his
own life. He has been known to wade
up to his neck in water, and change his
! clothes driving away from the river on
the box of a fly. This was an eXcep-
tional case but it was n common thing
for him to sit for hours in wet boots.
He rarely wore q great coat !; he never
! owned o railway rug !; he took a delight
in cold, and frequently compared him
self to q polar bear, which lanSuishcd
in the heat and revived in the frost.
The pleasure which Mr.. auckland de-
rived from cold accounted for many of
his eccentricities. Even in winter he
wore the smallest amount of clothing !;
in summer he Discarded almost
all clothing. Those were very
rare occasions on which he wore
a coat at home. His usual dress was a
pair of trousers and a flannel shirt; he
deferred putting on socks and boots till
he was starting for his Office. Even on
inspections he generally appeared at
breakfast in the same attire, and on one
occasion he left alargc country house, i'll
! which he was staying, with no other
garments on. While he was driving in
a dogcart to the station he put on his
boots, and as the train was drawing up
to the station, at which n deputation of
country gentlemen was awaiting him,
he said with q sigh that he must begin
to dress. Boots were in fact his special
! aversion. He lost no opportunity OF
kicking them off his feet. On II oc-
casion, travelling alone in q railway
carriagc, he fell asleep with
his feet resting on tho window.
sill. As usual, he kicked off
his boots and they fell outside the
carriage on the line. When he
reached his destination the boots
could not, of course, he found, and he
had to 20 without them to the hotel.
The next morning q platelayer examin-
ing the permanent way came upon the
boots, and reported to tho traffic mana
ager that he had found a pair of gentle
mans boots, but that he could not find
the gentleman. Some II connected
with the railway recollected that Mr..
auckland had been seen in the neigh
borhood, and knowing his eccentricities,
inferred that the boots must belong to
him. They were accordingly sent to
the home Office and were Mt once
claimed.
We have said that he rarely wore n
ercatcoat, and when he did SO it was
apparently more for the value of the adj
ditional pockets it contained than for
it's warmth. One of his good stories
turned on this. He had been in France,
and was returning Win Southampton,
with an overcoat stuffed with natural
history specimens of all sorts dead and
alive. Among them wa a monkey, which
was domiciled in a large inside pocket.
As auckland was taking his ticket,
Jocko thrust up his head and attracted
the attention of the booking-clcrk,
who Immediately land very properly
said "You must take II ticket
for that dog, if lis going with
YOU" "Dog?" said auckland "it'sa
monkey" at is q dog" replied the
clerk. cts q monkey" retorted Buck
land, and proceeded to show the whole
animal, but without convincing the
clerk, who insisted on five shillings for
the dog-ticket to London. Nettled at
this, Buckland plunged his hand into
another pocket and produced a tortoise,
and laying it on the sill of the ticket
window said "Parhaps you call that a
dog, too" The clerk inspected the tor,
toise. "No," said he, "wc make no
charge for them-they're insects"
A volume might perhapsbe filled with
IN account of Mr.. Buckland's eccen-
tricities. When he was studying oysters,
he would never allow any n to speak;
the oysters, he said, overheard the con-
versation and shut up their shells. More
inanimate objects than oysters were en-.
dowed by him with sense. He had almost
persuaded himself that inanimate things
could be spiteful; and he used to say
that he could write q book on their
sp~itefulness. If a railway lamp did not
burn properly he would declare it was
sulkv, and throw it out of the window
to see if it could find 1t better master.
He punished his p%ortmnnteau on II oc,
casion by knocking it down, and the
portmanteau naturally revenged itself
by breaking all the bottles of specimens
which it contained, and cmptying their
contents on his masters shirts. To pro-
vide himself against possible disasters,
he used to carry with him M armorv of
implements. On the herring inqhiry
he went to Scotland with six boxes of
cigars, four dozen pencils, five knives
and three thermometers. On his return
three weeks afterward, he produced one
solitary pencil, the remnant of all this
property. The knives were lost, the
cigars were smoked; ono thermometer
had lost it's temper, and been thrown
out of q window; another had been
drowned in the Pentland firth, and Il
third had beaten out its brains against
the bottom of q gunboat. No human
being could have told the fate OF the
Dnnpils