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 novels, supplemented the lack of interesting history lessons at school, besides giving him an insight into many kinds of literature suited to his varied tastes and temperament.  In addition, however, to the hours spent in reading, he and his brother John found endless delight in turning the loft of an outhouse adjoining their yard into a sort of mechanical factory.  Here they contrived, by saving up all their pence (the only pocket-money that came to them), to make crackers and other simple fireworks, and to turn old keys into toy cannon, besides making a large variety of articles for practical domestic purposes.  Thus he cultivated the gift of resourcefulness and self-reliance on which he had so often to depend when far removed from all civilisation during his travels on the Amazon and in the Malay Archipelago.

A somewhat amusing instance of this is found in a letter to his sister, dated June 25th, 1855, at a time when he wanted a really capable man for his companion, in place of the good-natured but incapable boy Charles, whom he had brought with him from London to teach collecting.  In reply to some remarks by his sister about a young man who she thought would be suitable, he wrote:  “Do not tell me merely that he is ’a very nice young man.’  Of course he is....  I should like to know whether he can live on rice and salt fish for a week on occasion....  Can he sleep on a board?...  Can he walk twenty miles a day?  Whether he can work, for there is sometimes as hard work in collecting as in anything.  Can he saw a piece of wood straight?  Ask him to make you anything—­a little card box, a wooden peg or bottle-stopper, and see if he makes them neat and square.”

In another letter he describes the garden and live stock he had been able to obtain where he was living; and in yet another he gives a long list of his domestic woes and tribulations—­which, however, were overcome with the patience inculcated in early life by his hobbies, and also by the fact that the family was always more or less in straitened circumstances, so that the children were taught to make themselves useful in various ways in order to assist their mother in the home.