222 MISCELLANEA {continued). [1876-82. 



revolve very rapidly, first in one direction, and then in. 

 another, so as to destroy for a time all sense of direction in 

 the insects. I have sometimes imagined that animals may 

 feel in which direction they were at the first start carried.* If 

 this plan failed, I had intended placing the pigeons within an 

 induction coil, so as to disturb any magnetic or dia-magnetic 

 sensibility, which it seems just possible that they may 

 possess. C. D. 



[During the latter years of my father's life there was a 

 growing tendency in the public to do him honour. In 1877 

 he received the honorary degree of LL.D. from the University 

 of Cambridge. The degree was conferred on November 17, 

 and with the customary Latin speech from the Public Orator, 

 concluding with the words : " Tu vero, qui leges naturae tarn 

 docte illustraveris, legum doctor nobis esto. ,} 



The honorary degree led to a movement being set on foot 

 in the University to obtain some permanent memorial of my 

 father. A sum of about £400 was subscribed, and after the 

 rejection of the idea that a bust would be the best memorial,, 

 a picture was determined on. In June 1879 he sat to Mr. W. 

 Richmond for the portrait in the possession of the University, 

 now placed in the Library of the Philosophical Society at 

 Cambridge. He is represented seated in a Doctor's gown, 

 the head turned towards the spectator : the picture has many 

 admirers, but, according to my own view, neither the attitude 

 nor the expression are characteristic of my father. 



A similar wish on the part of the Linnean Society — with 

 which my father was so closely associated — led to his sitting 



* This idea was a favourite one marked desire to go eastward, even, 



with him, and he has described in when his stable lay in the opposite 



' Nature' (vol. vii. 1873, p. 360) the direction. In the same volume of 



behaviour of his cob Tommy, in 'Nature,' p. 417, is a letter on the 



whom he fancied he detected a sense ' Origin of Certain Instincts,' which 



of direction. The horse had been contains a short discussion on the 



taken by rail from Kent to the Isle of sense of direction. 

 Wight ; when there he exhibited a 



