PROFESSORSHIP OF ZOOLOGY 133 



big fool go North Pole, muchee ice, starvee-starvee. 

 Thomson wise man go home chow-chow quack-quack 

 and bow-bow with Led Lions. Glosvenor pigeon no go. 

 Ahsin too inuchee savvy. Lice clop vely fine. 



Li.* 



Towards the end of 1865 it was decided by the Uni- 

 versity of Cambridge that the teaching of Comparative 

 Anatomy, which had hitherto been a part of the duty of 

 the Professor of Anatomy, should be removed from his 

 school and that a Professorship of Zoology and Compara- 

 tive Anatomy should be founded. The election took 

 place on March 1, 1866, and there were two candi- 

 dates, W. H. D. Drosier, M.D., of Caius, and Alfred 

 Newton, M.A., of Magdalene. Drosier had been twenty- 

 second Wrangler in 1839 and a Senior Fellow of his 

 College. He was a great sportsman, and is described as 

 ' a man of much ingenuity and wide knowledge of 

 anatomy and natural history." He was, moreover, a 

 man of considerable property, and was very popular in 

 the University. Newton was armed with a powerful 

 array of testimonials from Owen, Gould, Gray, Murchison, 

 Sclater, and others. It was the bad custom in those days 

 for elections to be made by the Senate, and candidates 

 were required to canvass for votes, as in a parliamentary 

 election. It often happened that electors gave their vote 

 to a friend, although they might know that he was not 

 the best candidate for the post. 



Magd. Coll., 



March 1, 1866. 



MY DEAR TRISTRAM, 



I doubt if it had been Horace's luck to stand 

 a contested election. It would be difficult for any one 

 then to keep the aequam mentem, and I admit / can't. 



* The authorship of these " telegrams " is not certain. They were 

 found among Newton's papers, written in his own handwriting, so it is 

 probable that some of them, at all events, were written by him. 



