"Selous presented the eggs to the Natural History Society, and they were safe in the collection twenty years ago, I am told. I hope they are there still.
"He also climbed the great elm trees, which then stood in the close, for rooks' eggs. This feat was also performed at night, and the cawing of the rooks roused Dr. Temple, but Selous was not detected in the darkness.
"Selous' special contribution to our Society was on birds. If I remember right his first list of birds noted at Rugby exceeded ninety. I will tell the story how one very rare bird was added to our list. It was in the very hard winter of 1867; snow was lying on the ground. In the evening, some hours after lock-up a ring at the front door came at the moment I was going to my study, the door of which is close to the front door. I opened the front door and there stood Selous, with a bird dangling from his hand. I don't know which of us was most surprised. 'Come in to the study; what have you got there?' 'Oh, sir, it's Williamson's duck; it's very rare.' (I invent the name Williamson, I know it was somebody's duck.) 'Go and fetch the bird-book from the House Library.' (I had put an excellent bird-book in several volumes into the Library for his use.) 'Leave the bird.' I examined the bird, neatly shot through the neck. He was quite right, a note in the book said that it had been occasionally seen at certain places on the East coast; only once, I think, inland as far as Northamptonshire. 'How did you get it?' 'I saw it at Swift's and followed it to Lilbourne and got it there.' 'How?' 'With my tweaker,' was the reply. 'It must be a very powerful tweaker?' I said. 'Yes, sir, it's a very strong one; I thought you would not mind my being late for once, as it's very rare.'
"Some six years later, when he came back from a four years' solitary travel and exploration in what is now called Rhodesia, or even further inland, this incident of the tweaker turned up. 'I did wonder,' he said, 'whether you were such an innocent as really to believe it was a tweaker.' 'My dear Selous,' I said, 'I knew the bird was shot, and I knew you had a gun, and the farmhouse where you kept it, but you kept it so dark and made such excellent use of it that I said nothing about it.'
"One of the most difficult problems presented to all who are in authority is: how much ought I not to know and see?"
"I think it was on this occasion that he came down to a house-supper. He had told me lots of stories about his adventures in Africa during those four years. They are told in his books, every one of which is, I hope, in the School Library and well read. I asked him to tell some of them to the house. No he would not; so finally at the supper, I said that if he would not, I would, and I began with the story of his going to ask Lobengula, King of the Matabele, for leave to shoot elephants. 'You are only a boy,' the King said. 'You must shoot birds. The first elephant you hunt will kill you.' Selous jumped up. 'Oh, sir, let me tell it,' and we had a never-to-be-forgotten evening.
"But it is time to stop. One of his friends, Sir Ralph Williams, well said of him in a letter in 'The Times,' of January 10th, 'The name of Fred Selous stands for all that is straightest and best in South African story,' and I will venture to say that it stands for the same in Rugby annals.
"J. M. Wilson.
"Worcester, 22 January, 1917."
In August, 1868, at the age of seventeen, Selous left Rugby and went to Neuchâtel, in Switzerland, where he lived at the "Institution Roulet." He spent his time learning French and the violin and commenced his studies to be a doctor, for which profession he evinced no enthusiasm. Writing to his mother in November, he says:—