THEIR STUDY IN BRITAIN.
11
My father wrote also a Guide to the British Species of Mycetozoa
to explain the table-case of specimens exhibited in the botanical
gallery of the British Museum. This little book, which can
be obtained for the sum of three pence, contains a sketch of
the life history and descriptions of all the British species. It is
illustrated by wood-cuts showing the characters of each genus.
The stimulus which the publication of the Catalogue
of the Mycetozoa and of the Guide gave to the study of
these creatures led to a rich increase of correspondents living
in many parts of the world. Many new species were discovered
and a wealth of information with regard to geographical dis-
tribution was obtained. A number of articles summing up
new facts and observations were published by my father, and
materials stored for a second edition of the Monograph—an
edition which he did not live to bring out.
It was my father's delight to share his ' hobby,' as he called
it, with others. Unstinted help was gladly given to all who,
asked for it, whether by identifying or in giving specimens, or
by carefully written letters of instructions.
To quote from my brother's Obituary Memoir of my father,
written for the Royal Society, " His was no dry and lifeless
exposition ; he stood rather as one who had ascended the Mount
of Vision and whose high privilege and urgent duty it was
to reveal what had been vouchsafed to his view. This was,
in fact, his attitude of mind to all the phenomena of nature,
whether the ways of beast or bird, the structure of plants,
geological or physical phenomena, or the movement of the
heavenly bodies. It was all a revelation of the mystery of
life or of the environment of living things on the earth and
in the universe. When moved to speak of these things, he
would cast aside a shyness which had clung to him from his
boyhood and discourse with a force and eloquence which carried
conviction to the hearers and enlisted their sympathies in the
cause."
My father was an original member of the Essex Field Club.
He did not attend many of its meetings, partly from his
living for some months every year at Lyme Regis, but he
always had great sympathy with its objects and ideals.
Of my brother J. J. Lister's work on Mycetozoa. I will
only say that all his observations, such as those on the division