farmhouse on the Church Stretton road. I do not remember any mental pursuits excepting those of collecting stones, etc., gardening, and about this time often going with my father in his carriage, telling him of my lessons, and seeing game and other wild birds, which was a great delight to me. I was born a naturalist. When I was 9 1/2 years old (July 1818) I went with Erasmus to see Liverpool: it has left no impressions on my mind, except most trifling ones--fear of the coach upsetting, a good dinner, and an extremely vague memory of ships. In Midsummer of this year I went to Dr. Butler's School. (Chapter I./5. Darwin entered Dr. Butler's school in Shrewsbury in the summer of 1818, and remained there till 1825 ("Life and Letters," I., page 30).) I well recollect the first going there, which oddly enough I cannot of going to Mr. Case's, the first school of all. I remember the year 1818 well, not from having first gone to a public school, but from writing those figures in my school book, accompanied with obscure thoughts, now fulfilled, whether I should recollect in future life that year. In September (1818) I was ill with the scarlet fever. I well remember the wretched feeling of being delirious. 1819, July (10 1/2 years old). Went to the sea at Plas Edwards and stayed there three weeks, which now appears to me like three months. (Chapter I./6. Plas Edwards, at Towyn, on the Welsh coast.) I remember a certain shady green road (where I saw a snake) and a waterfall, with a degree of pleasure, which must be connected with the pleasure from scenery, though not directly recognised as such. The sandy plain before the house has left a strong impression, which is obscurely connected with an indistinct remembrance of curious insects, probably a Cimex mottled with red, and Zygaena, the burnet-moth. I was at that time very passionate (when I swore like a trooper) and quarrelsome. The former passion has I think nearly wholly but slowly died away. When journeying there by stage coach I remember a recruiting officer (I think I should know his face to this day) at tea time, asking the maid-servant for toasted bread and butter. I was convulsed with laughter and thought it the quaintest and wittiest speech that ever passed from the mouth of man. Such is wit at 10 1/2 years old. The memory now flashes across me of the pleasure I had in the evening on a blowy day walking along the beach by myself and seeing the gulls and cormorants wending their way home in a wild and irregular course. Such poetic pleasures, felt so keenly in after years, I should not have expected so early in life. 1820, July. Went a riding tour (on old Dobbin) with Erasmus to Pistyll Rhiadr (Chapter I./7. Pistyll Rhiadr proceeds from Llyn Pen Rhiadr down the Llyfnant to the Dovey.); of this I recollect little, an indistinct picture of the fall, but I well remember my astonishment on hearing that fishes could jump up it.