ch.xvii THE DEATH OF DARWIN 183 



in favour of using, for education in this direc- 

 tion, the existing machinery of the Agricultural 

 Colleges. 



In conjunction with Mr. Bouverie and others 

 he formed a company to introduce Mr. Edison's 

 system of electric lighting into Great Britain, 

 and several letters on the subject, from the great 

 inventor, are among the correspondence of this 

 year. 



There is also a letter of about the same date 

 from the then Princess of Wales, the present 

 Queen Alexandra, expressing her appreciation 

 of Sir John's book, Ants, Bees, and Wasps. Here 

 and there in his diary are notes of his meeting 

 one or other members of the Royal Family 

 from time to time, and on nearly all such occa- 

 sions they seem to have spoken to him with the 

 greatest interest of his experiments with these 

 insects. At this period of his varied career it is 

 indeed evident that the aspect of his multitudin- 

 ous industry which was impressing itself most 

 vividly on the popular imagination was his 

 study of the intelligence of the hymenopterous 

 insects. For the time being, at all events, it 

 was over-shadowing all that he had done in 

 antiquarian research, in other branches of science, 

 in finance, or in social legislation. 



A very sad note indeed is sounded in the 

 diary's entry of Sunday, March 19 : " Arnold 

 Morley for Sunday — went up to Darwin's — 

 the last time I saw him." Very shortly after- 

 wards the great teacher of evolution was seized 

 with his last illness and died on April 20. Sir 

 John writes : " For thirty years he has been 



