AN INDIGNANT CORRESPONDENT. 165 



pages in which is embodied a minute description of 

 some perfectly well-known fact, which the writer never- 

 theless looks upon as a perfectly original discovery, of 

 a nature which will shake received science to its very 

 foundations. He was inured to the flat and sometimes 

 even angry contradictions of his statements which 

 periodically arrived, and which were not always couched 

 in the mildest and most inoffensive of language. As 

 for instance : 



SIR, 



You say in your " Common Objects of the Country " (page 

 70) that insects never grow. You do not understand what you are 

 writing about. Sir, did you never see black-beetles in your life? 

 As you seem not to have seen them, I send you a lot which I caught 

 myself in my kitchen, and they are all of different sizes. Insects do 

 grow, and you are quite wrong. I hope that you will publish this 

 when you write again about insects. 



Yours indignantly, 



A. B. 



But for cool audacity I do not think that he ever 

 received any communication to be compared with one 

 that reached him just about this time, and which 

 appeared to have been written in perfectly good faith. 

 The writer began by stating that my father had 

 deservedly risen to very high eminence as a naturalist 

 and an author, that his name had now been before the 

 public for many years, and that his reputation was 

 thoroughly established. He then proceeded to say 

 that, as one who had written and lectured so much must 

 have necessarily amassed an immense fortune, it was 



