Famous Men of Science

About this time, Buckland wrote an article on the muscles of the arm, and took it to several periodicals, but none would accept it. Urged by Mr. White Cooper, the queen's oculist, he wrote an article upon his rats, which the friend carried to "Bentley's Miscellany." It was accepted, and thus began his successful authorship. This was subsequently published in his first book, "Curiosities of Natural History," in 1857.

He tells of one of his rat families: "One day a poor mother had moved her young about into several parts of the cage, but could not fix on one point. I saw what was wanting, she could not obtain cover for them. I put my hand into the cage, full of tow and cotton wool; she came instantly and took it out of my hand, and covered up her young. But, notwithstanding all this care, and although evidently most anxious for their welfare, this kind mother, obeying, I suppose, some wise law of nature, devoured during the following night every one of the little ones of which she had been so careful the preceding day."

After being house-surgeon at St. George's Hospital for some time, Buckland became assistant surgeon to the Second Life Guards in 1854. He had already given his first lecture, "The House We Live in," delivered at a Working Men's Coffee House and Institute established by his mother, in Westminster, London.

About this time he was nearly fatally poisoned by a cobra. He says, "I had not walked a hundred yards before, all of a sudden, I felt just as if somebody had come behind me and struck me a severe blow on the head and neck, and at the same time I experienced a most acute pain and sense of oppression at the chest, as though a hot iron had been run in and a hundred-weight put on the top of it. I knew instantly, from what I had read, that I was poisoned. I said as much to my friend, a most intelligent gentleman, who happened to be with me, and told him, if I fell, to give me brandy and eau-de-luce, words which he kept repeating in case he might forget them. At the same time I enjoined him to keep me going, and not on any account to allow me to lie down. I then forgot everything for several minutes, and my friend tells me I rolled about as if very faint and weak. He also informs me that the first thing I did was to fall against him, asking him if I looked seedy. He most wisely answered, 'No, you look very well.' I don't think he thought so, for his own face was as white as a ghost; I recollect this much. He tells me my face was of a greenish yellow color.

"After walking, or rather staggering, along for some minutes, I gradually recovered my senses, and steered for the nearest chemist's shop. Rushing in, I asked for eau-de-luce. Of course, he had none, but my eye caught the words, 'spiritus ammoniæ,' or hartshorn, on a bottle. I reached it down myself, and, pouring a large quantity into a tumbler with a little water, both of which articles I found on a soda-water stand in the shop, drank it off, though it burnt my mouth and lips very much. Instantly I felt relief from the pain at the chest and head. The chemist stood aghast, and, on my telling him what was the matter, recommended a warm bath. If I had then followed his advice, these words would never have been placed on record. After a second draught at the hartshorn bottle, I proceeded on my way, feeling very stupid and confused."

In August, 1856, Dean Buckland died, and in November, 1857, Mrs. Buckland. On December 17, her son wrote in his journal: "Thirty-one years ago, at 6 A. M., I came into the world, at the old house in Christ Church, Quadrangle. I am now about half-way across the stage of life, and thank God I am just beginning to feel my feet. But, oh! what I have lost since last birthday, the best friend a man can have in the world, – his mother."

He did not know that he was very much more than "half-way across the stage of life already." It is well that we walk by faith rather than sight.

"Oh! blissful, peaceful ignorance,'Tis blessed not to know;It keeps me quiet in those ArmsWhich will not let me go,And hushes all my soul to restOn the Bosom which loves me so."So I go on, not knowing —I would not if I might —I'd rather walk with God in the darkThan walk alone in the light;I'd rather walk with him by faithThan walk alone by sight."

In 1859, after a laborious search of some weeks in the vaults of St. Martin's in the Fields, Buckland found the body of John Hunter, the father of modern physiology, and the coffin was reinterred in Westminster Abbey. Though a most disagreeable task, he said, "I must not shrink from doing a thing at first sight disagreeable, or nothing will ever be accomplished. Nothing like determination and perseverance." The Leeds School of Medicine presented him a silver medal, as a mark of respect for his exertions.

In 1860, he helped to organize the Acclimatization Society, formed for the purpose of varying and increasing the food supply of Great Britain by introducing new animals and preserving the native fish. He also became voluntary consulting surgeon at the Zoölogical Gardens, doctoring the sick, and increasing by his example the tenderness shown to animals.

His life had now become a most active one. He wrote many valuable articles for the magazines, since issued in books, the "Log Book of a Fisherman and Zoölogist," and other volumes, and lectured frequently, to large audiences, on his favorite subjects.

In 1863, after eight years of service in the Life Guards, he resigned, and began to devote himself more than ever to fish culture. In January and February of each year he collected the eggs of trout and other fish from the Rhine, Switzerland, France, and elsewhere, distributing some throughout the country and artificially hatching others. Fish-hatching boxes were exhibited in the South Kensington Museum, and at the Crystal Palace. Trout ova in ice were sent to Australia, where, after incubation had been suspended for a hundred days, when placed in running water, the fish came into the world strong and healthy.

In 1864, Buckland made extended investigations in oyster culture; delivered lectures upon the subject before the British Association of Bath, the Society of Arts, the London Institution, indeed all through England and Ireland. He was appointed Scientific Referee to the South Kensington Museum, giving a course of lectures and of class demonstration. He sent about sixteen thousand young fish and eggs to the Horticultural Gardens, and with these he helped to illustrate his lectures and inform the public.

Through "Land and Water," a paper established by himself and a few friends, he reached and educated a large constituency.

In 1863, the year previous, he had married Miss Hannah Papes, and made his home at 37 Albany St., Regent's Park. Here he gathered all his pets, who found in Mrs. Buckland a person as kind and tender as their master. Here were brought his favorite monkeys, "Hag" and "Tiny." The latter came from the Zoölogical Gardens "as good as dead," but, through Mrs. Buckland's good nursing, she became well and strong.

With these pets, the overworked naturalist had great merriment. He says in his "Log Book": "When the fire is lighted in the morning, in my museum, the servants put the monkeys in their night cage before it, and directly I come down to breakfast I let them out. They are only allowed to be loose in my museum as they do so much mischief; and in my museum I alone am responsible for the damage they do. The moment the door of the cage is opened, they both rush out like rockets, and the Hag goes immediately to the fender and warms herself like a good monkey; as she, being older, seems to know that if she misbehaves herself she will have to be put back into her cage…

"Tiny steals whatever is on the table, and it is great fun to see her snatch off the red herring from the plate and run off with it to the top of the book-shelves. While I am getting my herring, Tiny goes to the breakfast table again, and, if she can, steals the egg; this she tucks under her arm, and bolts away, running on her hind legs. This young lady has of late been rather shy of eggs, as she once stole one that was quite hot, and burnt herself…

"Having poured out the tea, I open the 'Times' newspaper quite wide, to take a general survey of its contents. If I do not watch her carefully, Tiny goes behind the chair, on to the book-shelf, and comes crash into the middle of the 'Times.' Of course, she cannot go through the 'Times'; but she takes her chance of a fall somewhere, and her great aim seems, to perform the double feat of knocking the 'Times' out of my hand and upsetting the tea-pot and its contents; or, better still, the tea-pot on the floor. Lately, I am glad to say, she did not calculate her fall quite right; for she put her foot into the hot tea and stung herself smartly, and this seems to have had the effect of making her more careful for the future. All the day of this misfortune she walked upon her heels, and not upon her toes as usual.

"The Hag will also steal, but in a more quiet manner. She is especially fond of sardines in oil, and I generally let her steal them, because the oil does her good, though the servants complain of the marks of her oily feet upon the cloth. Sometimes the two make up a stealing party. One morning I was in a particular hurry, having to go away on salmon-inspection duty by train. I left the breakfast things for a moment, and in an instant Tiny snatched up a broiled leg of pheasant and bolted with it – carried it under her arm round and round the room, after the fashion of the clown in the pantomime. While I was hunting Tiny for my pheasant, the Hag bolted with the toast; I could not find time to catch either of the thieves, and so had to go off without any breakfast.

"Tiny and the Hag sometimes go out stealing together. They climb up my coat and search all the pockets. I generally carry a great many cedar pencils; the monkeys take these out and bite off the cut ends… When I come home in the evening, tired from a long day's work, I let out the monkeys, and give them some sweet stuff I bring home for them. By their affectionate greeting and amusing tricks they make me forget for a while the anxieties and bothers of a very active life. They know perfectly well when I am busy, and they remain quiet and do not tease me. The Hag sits on the top of my head, and 'looks fleas' in my hair, while Tiny tears up with her teeth a thick ball of crumpled paper, the nucleus of which she knows is a sugar-plum, one of a parcel sent by Mrs. Owen, the kind-hearted wife of my friend, Mostyn Owen, of the Dee Salmon Board, and received through the post in due form, directed, 'Miss Tiny and Miss Jenny Buckland.'"

Besides these monkeys, a writer tells of another pet which he found when calling on Mr. Buckland. "'It's a jolly little brute, and won't hurt,' exclaimed Mr. Buckland, as we were about to retreat from the threshold. The monkeys had seized the jaguar's tail, and, lifting it up with its hind legs bodily to the altitude of their cage, were rapidly denuding it of fur. No animal with any feelings of self-respect would submit silently to such humiliation, and the jaguar was making the place hideous with his yells.

"Hearing the cries of her pet, Mrs. Buckland came to the rescue; and it was amusing to see this child of the forest, with gleaming eyes and frantic yelps, cast itself at her feet, and nestle meekly in the folds of her dress; she had nursed it through a very trying babyhood, when Mr. Bartlett had sent it from the Zoo, apparently dying and paralyzed in the fore-legs, with a promise of fifteen pounds reward for a cure. That sum has long since been swallowed up in damages for clothes destroyed and boots devoured, as the invalid's health and appetite returned."

Mr. Buckland used to say: "Mrs. Buckland can tame any animal in the world —ecce signum, myself."

In 1867, Mr. Buckland was appointed Inspector of Fisheries. This was the realization of the wish of his life. He says in his diary, after receiving the appointment: "When I read this I felt a most peculiar feeling; not joy, nor grief, but a pleasurable, stunning sensation, if there can be such a thing. The first thing I did was to utter a prayer of thanksgiving to Him who really appointed me, and who has thus placed me in a position to look after and care for His wonderful works. May He give me strength to do my duty in my new calling!"

Buckland carried forward his work with the greatest zeal and energy. He writes in his journal: "I am now working from 8 A. M. to 6 P. M., then a bit in the evening, – fourteen hours a day; but, thank God, it does not hurt me. I should, however, collapse if it were not for Sunday. The machinery has time to get cool. The mill-wheel ceases to patter the water, the mill-head is ponded up, and the superfluous water let off by an easy, quiet current, which leads to things above."

Salmon, which had formerly abounded in Wales and England, and been used extensively for food, had almost or altogether ceased to exist in many rivers. Buckland carefully studied their habits. He put himself, as he often said, in the place of the salmon. He waded the pools, to feel the force and direction of the current against which they come up from the sea into the rivers. He did not spare himself in storm or cold.

"Most fish live either in fresh or in salt water; the salmon inhabits both. Bred in the higher waters of our rivers, the young salmon of one, two, or three years' growth make their way down to the sea as smolts, and return thence, impelled by the instinct of reproduction, to seek the gravelly spawning beds in the mountain streams. In early spring and through the summer and autumn months they come from the sea, bright-coated and silvery, and swim and leap and struggle up the rivers. Then is the fisherman's harvest. In winter the spawning time comes on, when the laws of nature and of man alike forbid their capture; for the fish, at other times so rich a luxury, are now vapid and unwholesome. Lean and flabby, the males with hooked beaks and scarred in fighting, the spawned fish, or kelts, rush down again to the sea; whence, after a while, they return, fresh and silvery, fattened to twice their former weight, and reënter the rivers as fresh-river fish, the joy alike of the fisherman and the epicure."

Buckland constructed salmon ladders over the weirs, that the fish might have free passage from the rivers to the sea. He sent a series of models of these ladders to the American Fishery Commissioners, with five boxes of specimen oysters, and a photograph of his museum, with its casts and curiosities. He helped to obtain proper legislation from Parliament, both as to fishes and sea-birds; indeed all living things, especially those aquatic, had his sympathy and help.

The results of his work were soon apparent. The yearly sales of English and Welsh salmon in Billingsgate market, London, before 1861, averaged about eight tons only. From 1867 to 1876 the average sale was eighty-eight tons. The sales of Irish salmon in Billingsgate, three hundred and fifty tons yearly; of Scotch salmon, over one thousand tons yearly. Thus was food provided for millions of people.

Everywhere Buckland was the friend of animals. He urged that pigs should have "pure, clean, wholesome water" to drink. He assisted at the opening of the Brighton Aquarium, a place which American visitors can never forget, and aided in the establishing of other aquaria.

In 1873, Mr. Buckland published a "History of British Fishes." All his books went through many editions. In 1874, at the Jubilee Anniversary of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, he spoke against cruelty to seals.

He wrote in the "Times": "Captain David Gray, of the sealing and whaling ship Eclipse, and myself first brought forward, some three years ago, the necessity for a close time for Arctic seals. The principal sealing ground is at Jan Mayen Island, thirteen hundred miles due north from London… The ships (sixty sail) arrive at the ice from the 15th to the 20th March, just as the young seals are born. The seal-hunters at once attack them, and the most horrible cruelty ensues. I quote Captain Gray's own words to me: 'Last year, the fleet set to work to kill the seals on March 26, 1874, and in forty-eight hours the fishing was completely over, the old seals being shot, wounded, or scared away, while thousands upon thousands of young ones were left crying piteously for their mothers. These mostly perished of famine in the snow, as they were not old enough to make worth while the trouble of killing them.

"'If you could imagine yourself surrounded by four or five hundred thousand babies, all crying at the pitch of their voices, you would have some idea of the piteous noise they make. Their cry is very like that of a human infant. These motherless seals collect into lots of five or six, and crawl about the ice, their heads fast becoming the biggest part of their bodies, searching, no doubt, to find the nourishment they stand so much in need of.'"

In 1876, an international close time was established, prohibiting the killing of seals until after April 3.

Mr. Buckland's reports on crab, lobster, herring, and other fisheries were most full and interesting. "Before the young crabs are born," he said, "the mother crab tucks up under her tail her numerous family of from one to two million coral-like eggs, and she sidles on tiptoe many a mile from her rocky home to some sandy flat in the deep sea, where her young family may flourish best. There, or perhaps on returning home, in early spring, the time for all young things to come forth, the tiny crabs burst the egg; yet so unlike their parent, that till lately they were thought some strange animalcula; goggle eyes, a hawk's beak, a scorpion's tail, a rhinoceros's horn, adorn a body fringed with legs, yet scarcely bigger than a grain of sand.

"Several strange shapes are assumed in turn ere the young crab attains the parent form. For the parents of so numerous a family it is well that nature has provided the young crabs with a strong suit of clothes, which does not wear out; but it is quickly outgrown. The young crabs shed from time to time the horny case, even to the finger-nails and eyelids; and mother Nature straightway provides, underneath, a new, soft, leathery suit, which quickly hardens into shell. Another marvel is, that the growth is, as it were, by leaps and bounds; each time it bursts its case the young crab swells suddenly to twice the size of the discarded shell.

"In crab youth several new suits are annually required. In maturer life the lady crab, it seems, is content with one new dress each year; yet is not the romance of life over. In the time of her soft-shelled weakness and seclusion, a male crab in full armor constantly attends her, guards her from danger, and solaces her in her retirement. An old crab's shell, covered sometimes with barnacles, or with oysters of several years' growth, shows that the patriarch has outlived the change of fashions which occupied his youth."

The report on herring showed that eight hundred million fish are taken yearly in Scotland, by more than seven thousand boats.

"The Log-Book of a Fisherman and Zoölogist" was published in 1875, and a new edition of "White's Natural History of Selborne," to which Buckland added many original observations. Most of his writing was done on the cars, on his way to different places to give lectures or attend to official business.

In 1878, he was appointed one of the commissioners to inquire into the sea fisheries of England and Wales, which furnish so much food for the people. Over a hundred million soles are sold yearly in London alone, besides fifty million plaice and whiting, and ten million eels. Mr. Buckland's correspondence with many countries had become extensive. He had been elected a member of various societies, and had received many gold medals, for his wide scientific knowledge and its practical application.

In December, 1879, he writes, "This Christmas week, I regret to say, I shall not have the opportunity of spending my time up to my neck in water, collecting salmon eggs for Australia or New Zealand, from one or other of our northern rivers, or in one of the southern rivers, getting trout eggs for the Thames. I must say I very much enjoy collecting salmon and trout eggs; it is very cold, and, at the same time, very hard work, but I very much prefer it to indoors and the fireside."

The exposure of this kind of work is seen by his description of it. "Here is a list of my 'Spawning kit.' First, the waterproof dress; this very useful garment is in fact a diver's dress, and, when properly put on, admits not a drop of water. It has, however, one fault, it is apt to freeze when I am out of the water, and then one feels encased, as it were, in a suit of inflexible armor. Second, the spawning tins… Third, a long, shallow basket… Fourth, house-flannel, cut into lengths of one yard; this is absolutely necessary to hold the struggling salmon. Those who are unaccustomed to spawn salmon have an awkward habit of putting their fingers into the gills of the fish, and if the fish's gills are injured and bleed, he suffers much from it. I never to my knowledge killed a fish in my life while spawning it. Fifth, dry towels; these are most necessary, as the slime from the salmon makes one's hands very slippery … besides which, wiping the hands warms them, and, when working in the water at this time of year, the cold to the hands and arms is fearful… Eleventh, ordinary baggage, and especially a bottle of scented hair-oil, with which to well anoint the chest and arms and tips of ears, when working in the water; a most excellent and serviceable plan. I took this hint from the Esquimaux."

Frank Buckland's last Fishery Report was made in March, 1880, containing an interesting description of the anatomy of the salmon, its food, habits, and the like.

Mr. Buckland had brought on lung trouble by constant exposure and tireless energy, and must have foreseen the end. At first it seemed hard to him that he should be taken in the midst of his best work, but he said, "God is so good, so very good to the little fishes, I do not believe he would let their inspector suffer shipwreck at last. I am going a long journey, where I think I shall see a great many curious animals. This journey I must go alone."

He had before this written in his diary: "I think it not improbable that, in a future state, the mind will be allowed a greater scope of knowledge, and the gates of omniscience will be thrown open to it, so that those things which it now sees through a glass, darkly, will be opened to the view and understanding. O most glorious reward, for a mind occupied here on earth in investigating the wonderful works of the Creator, from the magnificent and stupendously grand scene of geology, and the theory of the heavens, to the minute and delicate construction of a microscopic animalcule, or the immeasurably fine thread of a plant!"

He died December 19, 1880, and was buried in Brompton Cemetery, on Christmas Eve.

His last book, "Notes and Jottings from Animal Life," was published soon after his death.

No wonder that the noble son of the Dean of Westminster is remembered and loved. A friend wrote, after his death: "Energy was only one of Mr. Buckland's characteristics. His kindliness was another. Perhaps no man ever lived with a kinder heart. It may be doubted whether he ever willingly said a hard word or did a hard action. He used to say of one gentleman, by whom he thought he had been aggrieved, that he had forgiven him seventy times seven already, so that he was not required to forgive him any more.

"He could not resist a cry of distress, particularly if it came from a woman. Women, he used to say, are such doe-like, timid things, that he could not bear to see them unhappy. One night, walking from his office, he found a poor servant-girl crying in the street. She had been turned out of her place that morning, as unequal to her duties; she had no money and no friends nearer than Taunton, where her parents lived. Mr. Buckland took her to an eating-house, gave her a dinner, drove her to Paddington, paid for her ticket, and left her in charge of the guard of the train. His nature was so simple and generous that he did not even seem to realize that he had done an exceptionally kind action."

To read of such a life as this makes us trust humanity, and reassures us that there are many, very many noble and lovely characters in the world, both men and women. While we need good judgment and common sense, so as to discriminate wisely, we need also the sweet, sunny nature which, with some measure of ideality, sees rose colors amid the sombre tints of life. We usually find in other hearts what we cultivate in our own.