The King of Portugal, Carlos di Braganza, who was assassinated in the spring of 1908, was one of the most gifted and vigorous men of his age, fearless and intelligent to a rare degree, good-hearted, and devoted to the welfare of his people. If any man were justified in having no fear of outrage because he was conscious that his uprightness was proved and known to all men, his benevolence experienced by all, his ability and vast knowledge recognised by all, Dom Carlos was that man. Fanaticism, however, takes no account of the virtues of its victims. Until society has invented a method for keeping instruments of destruction out of the reach of dangerous, more or less maniacal individuals, all those who excite the fanatic’s brain, even by the excellence and nobility of their lives, risk death whenever they trust themselves to the tender mercies of a crowd. Psychology may one day enable us to detect, and improved supervision of children enable us to segregate before it is too late, the latent assassins in our midst. If they have not a king as their quarry their reason is palsied by a president, and were there no presidents, they would become homicidal in the presence of a prefect or a policeman—even of a professor.

Some four years ago I had the honour of conducting Dom Carlos round the Natural History Museum in Cromwell Road. He arrived without attendant or escort, and I passed two hours alone with him. I had been told that he was a great shot and fond of natural history, that he played every athletic game, rode, and swam better than the best, that he was a fine water-colour painter, a real artist—and a first-rate musician and singer. I was astonished at his knowledge and personal experience in natural history. His burly form and bright, honest face gave me a most agreeable impression, and when he said (as I had been told he would) to each explanation of a specimen upon which I ventured for his edification, “I know! I know!” felt that it was true, and that he really did know. “I have shot thirty of them in the south of my country,” he said of some rare bird. “I know! I know! I have described a new species like that in my book on the birds of Portugal. I shall send it to you!” was his comment on another. When we came to some wonderful coral-like specimens—sea-pens and sea-feathers, dredged in the deep sea and preserved in spirits, for exhibition in the Museum—he said, to my astonishment, “Those are very bad. I get much better than those in my yacht off the Portuguese coast. I preserve them myself; it is a real art. I shall send you some.” I said they would be a very welcome addition. “Yes, I know! I know!” he said. “Would you like some fishes, too? The Prince of Monaco has some fine things, and he led me to collect also myself. I have now many things better than his. I shall send you some fishes, too.” And he did. A few months after his return to Portugal he sent to the Museum a large collection, preserved in spirit, which included many very fine and interesting specimens of deep-water Atlantic fishes; also his work, with coloured plates, on the Birds of Portugal, and a most remarkable publication on the tunny fisheries of the South Coast of Portugal—giving a careful survey of the waters, sea bottom, currents, fauna, and flora in correct, expert form, such as might issue from a Government Fisheries Board, but in this case done, as modestly indicated on the title-page, by the Head of the State himself, “Dom Carlos di Braganza.” He went into the work-rooms of the Museum, where some new fishes were being drawn, and conversed with the naturalist in charge, and criticised the drawings. He saw everything, appreciated everything, and then looking at his watch, said, “I have only five minutes to get to a lunch party. Thank you very much for the most delightful time. I should like to stay all the day; it is a splendid place,” and was off in his brougham.

I exhibited the specimens and books sent by his Majesty for some weeks in the Central Hall of the museum, before they were incorporated in the great collection, for I felt that it was a rare and interesting thing that a king should not merely take a sportsman’s pleasure in birds, beasts, and fishes, but actually be, so to speak, “one of us”—a zoologist who discovers, describes, and names new things. The Prince of Monaco is the only other head of a State who is a serious scientific naturalist. He has built and endowed a magnificent museum and laboratory at Monaco, where his skilled assistants carry on researches and look after the extremely valuable and important collections which he has himself made in a series of cruises in the Atlantic extending over many years. He has not only employed capable naturalists to help him, but is himself the chief authority and an original discoverer in “oceanography,” the science of the great oceans.

A year or so ago, when Dom Carlos visited Paris, a special fÊte and reception was organised in his honour at the “MusÉum d’Histoire Naturelle,” in the Jardin des Plantes. The “Museum” of the Jardin des Plantes is a very remarkable institution, including a zoological and botanical garden, laboratories of chemistry, physics, and physiology, besides the great collections of minerals, fossils, skeletons, and preserved specimens of animals and plants. It is governed by the professors and the director who are in charge of the garden, the laboratories, and the collections, and owes its dignity and its celebrity to the distinguished men of science who for a century and a half have made discoveries and taught there. They are not subject to a board of eminent and wealthy persons, nor is the administration of the antiquities at the Louvre and of the National Library muddled up with that of the great scientific workshop of Natural History.

When the President of the Republic conceived the plan of entertaining the King of Portugal at the Museum of Natural History there were those who supposed that the Minister of Education would, as a great State official, be called upon to arrange the proceedings. Nothing of the sort was done. It was found that the Minister had no authority in regard to the Museum, which, as an independent State institution, organised and carried out the reception through its own officers. The director and professors received President FalliÈres and the King, escorted by the troops of the Republic. The garden and buildings were ablaze with light and colour, and a large company assembled to take part in the fÊte. In the great hall of the museum Becquerel, Moissan, and others showed their most recent discoveries as to radium, artificial diamonds, and such matters to the King; others exhibited new birds and fishes, the okapi and newly-discovered fossils, and briefly explained their history and significance. The King conferred decorations on the scientific staff, and gave friendly acknowledgments to all who had thus sought to gratify his special tastes, and prepared for him a really exceptional gala-demonstration of scientific discovery. The official “middle-men,” who in other countries contrive to divert the honour and emoluments due to men of science, to their own profit, were on this occasion happily kept at a distance.