206 LIFE OF PROFESSOR HUXLEY cHAP. VIII 



get a good telescope and watch, you will have a glimpse 

 as they hover between sand and rooks' beaks. 



It has been blowing more or less of a gale here from 

 the west for weeks — usually cold, often foggy — so that it 

 seems as if summer were going to be late, probably about 

 November. 



But we thrive fairly well. L. and J. and their chicks . 

 are here and seem to stand the inclemency of the weather 

 pretty fairly. The children are very entertaining. 



M has been a little complaining, but is as active 



as usual. 



My love to Joyce, and tell her I am glad to hear she 

 has not forgotten her astronomy. 



In answer to your inquiry, Leonard says that Trevenen 

 has twenty-five teeth. I have a sort of notion this can 

 be hardly accurate, but never having been a mother can't 

 presume to say. — Our best love to you all. — Ever your 

 loving Pater. 



HoDESLEA, Eastbourne, 

 Aug. 26, 1891. 



Dearest Babs — 'Pears to me your friend is a squid or 

 pen-and-ink fish, Loligo among the learned. Probably 

 Loligo media which I have taken in that region. They 

 have ten tentacles with suckers round their heads, two 

 much longer than the others. They are close to cuttle- 

 fish, but have a thin horny shell inside them instead of 

 the "cuttle-bone." If you can get one by itself in a tub 

 of water, it is pretty to see how they blush all over and 

 go pale again, owing to little colour-bags in the skin, 

 which expand and contract. Doubtless they took you 

 for a heron, under the circumstances [sketch of a 

 wader]. 



With slight intervals it has been blowing a gale from 

 the west here for some months, the memory of man indeed 

 goeth not back to the calm. I have not been really 

 warm more than two days this so-called summer. And 



