ch. vii.] 1836-1842. 149 



" I have not made much progress with the great men. 

 I find, as you told me, that they are all overwhelmed with 

 their own business. Mr. Lyell has entered, in the most 

 good-natured manner, and almost without being asked, into 

 all my plans. He tells me, however, the same story, that I 

 must do all myself. Mr. Owen seems anxious to dissect 

 some of the animals in spirits, and, besides these two, I 

 have scarcely met any one who seems to wish to possess any 

 of my specimens. I must except Dr. Grant, who is willing 

 to examine some of the corallines. I see it is quite unrea- 

 sonable to hope for a minute that any man will undertake 

 the examination of a whole order. It is clear the collectors 

 so much outnumber the real naturalists that the latter 

 have no time to spare. 



" I do not even find that the Collections care for receiv- 

 ing the unnamed specimens. The Zoological Museum * is 

 nearly full, and upwards of a thousand specimens remain 

 unmounted. I dare say the British Museum w T ould receive 

 them, but I cannot feel, from all I hear, any great respect 

 even for the present state of that establishment. Your 

 plan will be not only the best, but the only one, namely, to 

 come down to Cambridge, arrange and group together the 

 different families, and then wait till people, w r ho are already 

 w r orking in different branches, may want specimens. . . . 



" I have forgotten to mention Mr. Lonsdale,f who gave 

 me a most cordial reception, and with whom I had much 

 most interesting conversation. If I was not much more 

 inclined for geology than the other branches of Natural 

 History, I am sure Mr. Lyell's and Lonsdale's kindness 

 ought to fix me. You cannot conceive anything more thor- 

 oughly good-natured than the heart-and-soul manner in 

 which he put himself in my place and thought what would 

 be best to do." 



A few davs later he writes more cheerfullv : " I became 

 acquainted with Mr. Bell, J who, to my surprise, expressed 

 a good deal of interest about my Crustacea and reptiles, and 



* The Museum of the Zoological Society, then at 33 Bruton Street. The 

 collection was some years later Broken up and dispersed. 



t William Lonsdale, b. 1794, d. 1871, was originally in the army, and 

 served at the battles of Salamanca and Waterloo. After the war he left the 

 service and gave himself up to science. He acted as assistant-secretary to the 

 Geological Society from 1S29-42, when he resigned, owing to ill-health. 



% T. Bell, F.R.S., formerly Professor of Zoology in King's College, London, 

 and sometime secretary to the Koyal Society. He afterwards described the 

 reptiles for the Zoology of the Voyage of the Beagle. 



