"My mother had quite an unusual interest in, and knowledge of, natural history, and my father also made some fine collections of butterflies, etc., which are still to be seen in my brother's museum. My father's youngest brother, Angiolo--a man of the most polished and courtly manners--was as dark as my father was fair. Entirely educated by his mother, there was little in which he did not excel. He had a beautiful voice and was a charming singer, often to his own accompaniment on the guitar, and was a well-known dramatist in his time, some of his plays being most successful. How well I remember the first night of his 'True to the Core,' when we all went across the river to the Surrey Theatre and helped with our feet and umbrellas in the general enthusiasm. He was a fine actor and dramatic reader, and a charming artist. We have a perfect gem of his--Don Quixote, sitting in his study--the colouring, the face and expression, the painting, are perfect, and one feels that Don Quixote must have looked just so. The haggard face and the wild look in the eyes that are seeing visions. But it was unfortunate that my uncle neglected this talent altogether. My uncle, Harry Selous, was of course the artist, excelling chiefly, I think, in his beautiful outlines of the 'Pilgrim's Progress,' and his 'Metamorphoses of Ovid,' on which subjects he could draw on his imagination for ever, it seemed. It is a thousand pities they have never been produced. His illustrations of the Life of Bruce and Hereward the Wake are fine, and The Prisoners of Calais and Boadicea are well known. The latter most fine, I think. He would paint the most charming landscapes with great rapidity, and his chalk (coloured) and pencil sketches from his travels in Switzerland are charming too, and endless numbers of them. He painted some of the famous Coliseum panoramas, each in turn being painted out by the next one, which always seemed very dreadful. His original illustrations drawn on wood, were exquisite, and it was cruel to see how they were spoilt in the wood-cutting, but he valued his work so lightly that he did not seem to mind much about it. My grandfather, Gideon Slous, had a very great talent for painting, and was a fine colourist, quite like an old master, and he painted some beautiful miniatures also. He was a man of violent temper." Frederick Courtenay Selous was born in the house in Regent's Park on December 31st, 1851. The other children of his parents were: Florence, "Locky," now Mrs. Hodges; Annie, married to Mr. R. F. Jones; Sybil, "Dei," married to Mr. C. A. Jones; Edmund, married to Fanny, daughter of Mrs. Maxwell (Miss Braddon). He is a well-known student of British bird-life and has published many interesting books on British Natural History.