Since landing from the boat he has obtained some consolation from the beauty and variety of the insect and bird life around him, for he is absolutely wholehearted in his devotion to science. He spends his days flitting through the woods with his shotgun and his butterfly net, and his evenings in mounting the many specimens he has acquired. Among his minor peculiarities are that he is careless as to his attire, unclean in his person, exceedingly absentminded in his habits, and addicted to smoking a short briar pipe, which is seldom out of his mouth. He has been upon several scientific expeditions in his youth (he was with Robertson in Papua), and the life of the camp and the canoe is nothing fresh to him.