He became an excellent shot and, as his son says, had all his life a remarkable power of coördinating his movements, so that he was not only accurate with a gun, but in throwing, and after he was a grown man, simply to test his skill, he threw a marble at a cross-beak and killed it: ‘He was so unhappy at having uselessly killed the cross-beak that he did not mention it for years, and then explained that he should never have thrown at it if he had not felt sure that his old skill had gone from him.’[251] Perhaps the most striking witness to the depth of Darwin’s passion for these field sports is the unusually harsh remark of his father who loved his son and was deeply beloved by him: ‘You care for nothing but shooting, dogs, and rat-catching, and will be a disgrace to yourself and all your family.’[252] Which is not the first case of imperfect prevision on the part of a father, nor the last. Of games that are more essentially social, there is no indication that Darwin was an ardent practitioner. When he was at school he played ‘batfives,’[253] but there is no mention of football or cricket. In describing his personal tastes in later years, he speaks of cards with something of contempt: ‘Have not played for many years, but I am sure I should not remember.’[254] His tone about them in 1842, however, is quite different: ‘This walk was rather too much for me, and I was dull till whist, which I enjoyed beyond measure.’[255] In 1859, the year of the ‘Origin,’ he set up a billiard-table, ‘and I find it does me a deal of good, and drives the horrid species out of my head.’[256] But his special pleasure in the game line was backgammon, which he played with Mrs. Darwin, year after year, keeping a score of victories and defeats, getting or pretending to be, greatly excited over his failures and even indignant at his antagonist’s good-fortune. In 1875 he wrote to Asa Gray: ‘Pray give our very kind remembrances to Mrs. Gray. I know that she likes to hear men boasting, it refreshes them so much. Now the tally with my wife in backgammon stands thus: she, poor creature, has won only 2490 games, whilst I have won, hurrah, hurrah, 2795 games.’[257] But through it all Darwin’s humanity is evident everywhere. He loved his fellow-creatures, loved to mix with them, and to have them care for him, and his interest went far deeper than a mere, though absorbing, curiosity as to their animal origin. II The drawback to Darwin’s social life, as to his power of work, was in the limitations of health, and if we would fully appreciate not only the heroism of his achievement, but the charm of his character, we must understand how great and far-reaching those limitations were. The natural strength and vigor of his sturdily constructed frame endured through youth and in the main through the Beagle voyage, in spite of the persistent sea-sickness; but from shortly after his return to England on, his life was nothing but a more or less relieved and varying chronic invalidism.