little superior to the common run of youths, otherwise the above-
mentioned men, so much older than me and higher in academical
position, would never have allowed me to associate with them.
Certainly I was not aware of any such superiority, and I remember
one of my sporting friends, Turner, who saw me at work with my
beetles, saying that I should some day be a Fellow of the Royal
Society, and the notion seemed to me preposterous.

During my last year at Cambridge, I read with care and profound
interest Humboldt's 'Personal Narrative.' This work, and Sir J.
Herschel's 'Introduction to the Study of Natural Philosophy,'
stirred up in me a burning zeal to add even the most humble
contribution to the noble structure of Natural Science. No one
or a dozen other books influenced me nearly so much as these two.
I copied out from Humboldt long passages about Teneriffe, and
read them aloud on one of the above-mentioned excursions, to (I
think) Henslow, Ramsay, and Dawes, for on a previous occasion I
had talked about the glories of Teneriffe, and some of the party
declared they would endeavour to go there; but I think that they
were only half in earnest. I was, however, quite in earnest, and
got an introduction to a merchant in London to enquire about
ships; but the scheme was, of course, knocked on the head by the
voyage of the "Beagle".

My summer vacations were given up to collecting beetles, to some
reading, and short tours. In the autumn my whole time was
devoted to shooting, chiefly at Woodhouse and Maer, and sometimes
with young Eyton of Eyton. Upon the whole the three years which
I spent at Cambridge were the most joyful in my happy life; for I
was then in excellent health, and almost always in high spirits.