Boijal Microscopical Society. 95 



ont ; sitting hens were laid under contribution ; and the first chick's 

 head yielded me the " basi-temporals " in a distinct condition. This 

 initial piece of work was highly praised by Huxley. Since then no 

 step has been taken, no observation made, without the microscope; 

 every organ, every tract of cartilage, every fibrous band, and every 

 ossicle, has been subjected to microscopical examination, assisted by 

 projDcr chemical reagents and solutions. 



My friend Huxley himself showed me how to use caustic 

 potash, and glycerine ; and another valued fellow- worker, Mr. Henry 

 Power, taught me the value of chromic acid. At the kind suggestion 

 of Dr. Sharpey and Professor Huxley, the Eoyal Society voted me 

 a valuable microscope. Thus have I been helped and befriended on 

 every side, and to the pleasures of science have been superadded 

 the pleasures of friendship. 



Let it not be said, Gentlemen, that scientific men are a quarrel- 

 some tribe, my own experience contradicts such an aspersion ; for 

 during all these years there has been to me " neither adversary, nor 

 evil occnrrent." My old master. Professor Owen, laughs gently at 

 my weakness in going over to the enemy ; he wonders at the folly 

 of the man who can take a Huxley for his " guide " ; yet, " although 

 he hath laughed on me, I believe it not." 



I hope that my mention of the Balseniceps paper will not lead 

 any Fellow of this Society to refer to it ; it was written in my younger 

 days, and its composition is so peculiar, that my most intimate 

 friends " hide their minds " when it is spoken of in my presence. 

 Its style is said to be the evolution of a new species of writing, and 

 is supposed to be unconformable with any type known to scholars 

 generally. Professor Huxley thought it sufficiently grotesque to 

 deserve a new specific name of " Parkerian." Eleven years have 

 elapsed since then, and my literary infants still retain a peculiar and 

 somewhat ursine form ; nevertheless, I have laboured hard to lick 

 them into elegance. Two years after the first paper, it occurred to 

 me to take up the great gallinaceous group of birds developmentally, 

 to be illustrated by collateral embryological work. I had been 

 incited to this by finding that one group of these birds, the Tina- 

 mous, were essentially ostriches. That was really a discovery in 

 this country ; but Sundevall, the Swede, had already said of 

 Tinamus, Bhynchotis' and Crypturus, " Struthiones parvos re- 

 ferunt ! " That which delighted me most, however, was to find 

 that sea-gulls were plovers in their infancy, and became sj)ecialized 

 into their own type afterwards. This was a germinant idea, and 

 many of you know what fruit it has borne through the rich ma- 

 nuring given to it by Professor Huxley. The result may be seen 

 in his paper, in the 'Proceedings of the Zoological Society 'for 1867, 

 on the Classification of Birds. 



Working on, in the way I have described — largely with the micro- 



