1888 THE DARWIN OBITUARY 59 



every sense as much an "academical distinction" as the 

 Masterships in Surgery or Doctorate of Medicine of the 

 Scotch and English Universities. 



4. You may as well cry for the moon as ask my 

 colleagues in the Senate to meddle seriously with the 

 Matriculation. They are possessed by the devil that 

 cries continually, " There is only the Liberal education, 

 and Greek and Latin are his prophets." 



At Bournemouth lie also applied himself to 

 writing the Darwin obituary notice for the Royal 

 Society, a labour of love which he had long felt un- 

 equal to undertaking. The MS. was finally sent off 

 to the printer's on April 6, unlike the still longer 

 unfinished memoir on Spirula, to which allusion is 

 made here, among other business of the Challenger 

 Committee, of which he was a member. 



On February 12 he writes to Sir J. Evans : — 



Spirula is a horrid burden on my conscience — ^but 

 nobody could make head or tail of the business but 

 myself. 



That and Darwin's obituary are the chief subjects of 

 my meditations when I wake in the night. But I do 

 not get much " forrarder," and I am afraid I shall not 

 until I get back to London. 



Bournemouth, Feb. 14, 1888. 



My dear Foster — No doubt the Treasury will jump 

 at any proposition which relieves them from further 

 expense — but I cannot say I like the notion of leaving 

 some of the most important results of the Gliallenger 

 voyage to be published elsewhere than in the official 

 record. . . . 



Evans made a deft allusion to Spirula, like a powder 



