(1826-1880)
Certainly, among the most useful of writers are the popularizers of
science; those who can describe in readable, picturesque fashion those
wonders and innumerable inhabitants of the world which the Dryasdusts
discover, but which are apt to escape the attention of idlers or of the
busy workers in other fields. Sometimes--not often--the same man unites
the capacities of a patient and accurate investigator and of an
accomplished narrator. To such men the field of enjoyment is boundless,
as is the opportunity to promote the enjoyment of others.
One of these two-sided men was Francis Trevelyan Buckland, popularly
known as "Frank" Buckland, and so called in some of his books. His
father, William Buckland,--at the time of the son's birth canon of
Christ College, Oxford, and subsequently Dean of Westminster,--was the
well-known geologist. As the father's life was devoted to the study of
the inorganic, so that of the son was absorbed in the investigation of
the organic world. He never tired of watching the habits of living
creatures of all kinds; he lived as it were in a menagerie and it is
related that his numerous callers were accustomed to the most familiar
and impertinent demonstrations on the part of his monkeys and various
other pets. He was an expert salmon-fisher, and his actual specialty was
fishes; but he could not have these about him so conveniently as some
other forms of life, and he extended his studies and specimens widely
beyond ichthyology.
Buckland was born December 17th, 1826, and died December 19th, 1880.
Brought up in a scientific atmosphere, he was all his life interested in
the same subjects. Educated as a physician and surgeon and distinguished
for his anatomical skill, his training fitted him for the careful
investigation which is necessary on the part of the biologist. He was
fortunate too in receiving in early middle life the government
appointment of Inspector of Salmon Fisheries, and so being enabled to
devote himself wholly to his favorite pursuits. In this position he was
unwearied in his efforts to develop pisciculture, and to improve the
apparatus used by the fishermen, interesting himself also in the
condition of themselves and their families.
He was always writing. He was a very frequent contributor to The Field
from its foundation in 1856, and subsequently to Land and Water, a
periodical which he started in 1866, and to other periodicals. He
published a number of volumes, made up in great part from his
contributions to periodicals, most of them of a popular character and
full of interesting information. Among those which are best known are
the 'Curiosities of Natural History' (1857-72); the 'Log-Book of a
Fisherman and Geologist' (1875); a 'Natural History of British Fishes'
(1881); and 'Notes and Jottings from Animal Life,' which was not issued
until 1882, though the material was selected by himself.
Buckland was of a jovial disposition, and always sure to see the
humorous side of the facts which were presented to him; and in his
social life he was extremely unconventional, and inclined to merry
pranks. His books are as delightful as was their writer. They are
records of accurate, useful, eye-opening details as to fauna, all the
world over. They are written with a brisk, sincere informality that
suggest the lively talker rather than the writer. He takes us a-walking
in green lanes and woods, and a-wading in brooks and still pools--not
drawing us into a class-room or a study. He enters into the heart and
life of creatures, and shows us how we should do the same. A lively
humor is in all his popular pages. He instructs while smiling; and he is
a savant while a light-hearted friend. Few English naturalists are as
genial--not even White of Selborne--and few as wide in didactics. To
know him is a profit indeed; but just as surely a pleasure.