Concerning Animals and Other Matters | Page 2

has become, through centuries of contact
with the Indian people, a domestic animal like the cat in Britain. When
one realises the fact that this same rat is responsible for the spread of
plague in India, and that every house is full of them, the value of this
naturalist's observation is plain. Thus began an intimacy which lasted
till Eha's death in 1909.
The first time I met Mr. Aitken was at a meeting of the Free Church of
Scotland Literary Society in 1899, when he read a paper on the early
experiences, of the English in Bombay. The minute he entered the
room I recognised him from the caricatures of himself in the Tribes.
The long, thin, erect, bearded man was unmistakable, with a typically
Scots face lit up with the humorous twinkle one came to know so well.
Many a time in after-years has that look been seen as he discoursed, as
only he could, on the ways of man and beast, bird or insect, as one
tramped with him through the jungles on the hills around Bombay
during week-ends spent with him at Vehar or elsewhere. He was an
ideal companion on such occasions, always at his best when acting the
part of _The Naturalist on the Prowl._

Mr. Aitken was born at Satara in the Bombay Presidency on August 16,
1851. His father was the Rev. James Aitken, missionary of the Free
Church of Scotland. His mother was a sister of the Rev. Daniel Edward,
missionary to the Jews at Breslau for some fifty years. He was educated
by his father in India, and one can well realise the sort of education he
got from such parents from the many allusions to the Bible and its old
Testament characters that one constantly finds used with such effect in
his books. His farther education was obtained at Bombay and Poona.
He passed M.A. and B.A. of Bombay University first on the list, and
won the Homejee Cursetjee prize with a poem in 1880. From 1870 to
1876 he was Latin Reader in the Deccan College at Poona, which
accounts for the extensive acquaintance with the Latin classics so
charmingly manifest in his writings. That he was well grounded in
Greek is also certain, for the writer, while living in a chummery with
him in Bombay in 1902, saw him constantly reading the Greek
Testament in the mornings without the aid of a dictionary.
He entered the Customs and Salt Department of the Government of
Bombay in April 1876, and served in Kharaghoda (the Dustypore of the
Tribes), Uran, North Kanara and Goa Frontier, Ratnagiri, and Bombay
itself. In May, 1903, he was appointed Chief Collector of Customs and
Salt Revenue at Karachi, and in November, 1905, was made
Superintendent in charge of the District Gazetteer of Sind. He retired
from the service in August 1906.
He married in 1883 the daughter of the Rev. J. Chalmers Blake, and left
a family of two sons and three daughters.
In 1902 he was deputed, on special duty, to investigate the prevalence
of malaria at the Customs stations along the frontier of Goa, and to
devise means for removing the Salt Peons at these posts, from the
neighbourhood of the anopheles mosquito, by that time recognised as
the cause of the deadly malaria, which made service on that frontier
dreaded by all.
It was during this expedition that he discovered a new species of
anopheline mosquito, which after identification by Major James, I.M.S.,
was named after him Anopheles aitkeni. During his long service there

are to be found in the Annual Reports of the Customs Department
frequent mention of Mr. Aitken's good work, but it is doubtful whether
the Government ever fully realised what an able literary man they had
in their service, wasting his talent in the Salt Department. On two
occasions only did congenial work come to him in the course of his
public duty--namely, when he was sent to study, from the naturalist's
point of view, the malarial conditions prevailing on the frontier of Goa;
and when during the last two years of his service he was put in literary
charge of The Sind Gazetteer. In this book one can see the light and
graceful literary touch of Eha frequently cropping up amidst the dry
bones of public health and commercial statistics, and the book is
enlivened by innumerable witty and philosophic touches appearing in
the most unlikely places, such as he alone could enliven a dull subject
with. Would that all Government gazetteers were similarly adorned!
But there are not many "Ehas" in Government employ in India.
On completion of this work he retired to Edinburgh, where most of the
sketches contained in this volume were written. He was very happy
with his family in his home at