in time would have palled if I had not also had the serious work of collecting and preparing my specimens.  Doubtless the family had their moments of suffering—­especially on one occasion when a well-meaning maid extracted from my taxidermist’s outfit the old tooth-brush with which I put on the skins the arsenical soap necessary for their preservation, partially washed it, and left it with the rest of my wash kit for my own personal use.  I suppose that all growing boys tend to be grubby; but the ornithological small boy, or indeed the boy with the taste for natural history of any kind, is generally the very grubbiest of all.  An added element in my case was the fact that while in Egypt I suddenly started to grow.  As there were no tailors up the Nile, when I got back to Cairo I needed a new outfit.  But there was one suit of clothes too good to throw away, which we kept for a “change,” and which was known as my “Smike suit,” because it left my wrists and ankles as bare as those of poor Smike himself.

When we reached Dresden we younger children were left to spend the summer in the house of Herr Minckwitz, a member of either the Municipal or the Saxon Government—­I have forgotten which.  It was hoped that in this way we would acquire some knowledge of the German language and literature.  They were the very kindest family imaginable.  I shall never forget the unwearied patience of the two daughters.  The father and mother, and a shy, thin, student cousin who was living in the flat, were no less kind.  Whenever I could get out into the country I collected specimens industriously and enlivened the household with hedge-hogs and other small beasts and reptiles which persisted in escaping from partially closed bureau drawers.  The two sons were fascinating students from the University of Leipsic, both of them belonging to dueling corps, and much scarred in consequence.  One, a famous swordsman, was called Der Rothe Herzog (the Red Duke), and the other was nicknamed Herr Nasehorn (Sir Rhinoceros) because the tip of his nose had been cut off in a duel and sewn on again.  I learned a good deal of German here, in spite of myself, and above all I became fascinated with the Nibelungenlied.  German prose never became really easy to me in the sense that French prose did, but for German poetry I cared as much as for English poetry.  Above all, I gained an impression of the German people which I never got over.  From that time to this it would have been quite impossible to make me feel that the Germans were really foreigners.  The affection, the Gemuthlichkeit (a quality which cannot be exactly expressed by any single English word), the capacity for hard work, the sense of duty, the delight in studying literature and science, the pride in the new Germany, the more than kind and friendly interest in three strange children—­all these manifestations of the German character and of German family life made a subconscious impression upon me which I did not in the least define at the time, but which is very vivid still forty years later.