5 2 NATURAL SCIENCE. Jan., 



" ioth. — R. drew the outline of diagram which I am to colour for 

 to-morrow's lecture. Afterwards he dissected a Chimpanzee. Will 

 watched his father dissecting till he himself smelt like a specimen 

 preserved in rum." 



Among the Professor's varied experience was a curious request 

 from a business firm which was worded as follows: — "We have 

 been for a few days embalming the remains of the late William 

 Beckford, Esq., of Fonthill Abbey. Will you oblige us by giving 

 us your opinion what we ought to charge ? We are entirely 

 at a loss to know the value with a family of such wealth of our 

 process. It has never been done in the West of England." They 

 were advised by Sir Richard to ask 100 guineas. A great deal of 

 the Professor's time was spent at the Zoo, and a highly interesting 

 entry in Mrs. Owen's diary refers to the first arrival of giraffes at 

 that institution ; it runs as follows :— 



" R. and I started at four, and after waiting about near the 

 garden till about five, saw the most lovely procession imaginable. 

 The four graceful bounding playful giraffes attended by M. Thiebaut 

 and four Africans in native costume. Two policemen were 

 there to clear the road, but in the neighbourhood of the Gardens 

 there was nothing to clear except an early cart or two. The 

 procession had walked from Blackwall — eight miles — and passed 

 through Gloucester Gate to the Gardens. When the giraffes 

 got on to that part of the road in which the trees were on 

 both sides, they could scarcely be held in by the attendants. One 

 animal got so excited that M. Thiebaut called out ' Laissez aller,' 

 &c.,and they allowed the pretty creature to bite off some of the young 

 shoots of the tree. . . . The giraffes had to have a light at night, 

 as they would not rest quietly without it." At this time all the animals 

 which died in the society's menagerie were dissected by Owen ; some 

 of them he used to take home ; and the material was supplemented 

 by occasional windfalls from travelling menageries. For instance, he 

 received one day a present of a rhinoceros from Wombwells, which 

 was accommodated in the back premises of his house in Lincoln's Inn 

 Fields. Nothing came amiss to his diligent scalpel. And yet with 

 all this vast amount of work he had plenty of time to attend meetings 

 of all kinds and to read a prodigious quantity of novels, among which 

 those of Charles Dickens were his prime favourites. These novels, as 

 well as his numerous papers, kept him up till late hours ; but nothing 

 seems to have hurt him, not even comparatively unlimited theatre- 

 going, another pleasure to which, we read, he was greatly addicted. 

 The only thing, indeed, which appears to have frequently upset him 

 was lecturing, of which he did a good deal. He used to lecture without 

 notes, but was highly nervous, at any rate at first. 



Professor Huxley, in his appreciative sketch of Owen's position 

 in science which closes the second volume, places him as scarcely 

 second to Cuvier. Like Cuvier his researches embraced the extinct 

 as well as living animals. His restoration of the Dinomis from a 

 fragment seized hold of the popular imagination, and as a consequence 

 he was inundated with inquiries as to the true nature of such extinct 

 beasts as the cockatrice, the phcenix, and the bunyip ; the latter is a 

 beast of which we had not heard before ; it appears to be, not only a 

 mythical, but also an Australian, monster founded upon an embryo 

 sheep. As to the phoenix, Owen once had an amusing interview 

 with an oriental gentleman from the Turkish embassy ; this personage 

 brought with him a ladle whose bowl was stated to be a piece of the 



