A STUDENT'S RECOLLECTIONS OF HUXLEY. 333 



principally on the position and construction of the bones of the 

 palate and beak and the stir which that radical departure in 

 classification brought out had not yet subsided. Prof. Parker 

 was still largely engaged in proving his case, and was naturally, 

 to use an expression that is less elegant than determining, full of 

 it. The over joyful manner in which he pointed out a confirma- 

 tory character here and there, or an exception to the rule else- 

 where, kindled a glowing enthusiasm within the listener to follow 

 in the line of the master, and a desire to make immediate friends 

 with basi-sphenoid and pterygoid bones. Drawer after drawer of 

 neatly prepared bird skulls, colored in correspondence so that 

 identical or homologous parts could be immediately detected, 

 were pulled out and hastily scanned over ; but the explanations 

 that were given, whatever they might have been, were liberally 

 sprinkled with admiration for the genius of Huxley who first 

 broke into the method which Parker so successfully elaborated 

 a second to whom was not to be found in all Britain. I shall not 

 easily forget the ocular gleam of pleasure, perhaps even delight, 

 with which Prof. Parker announced dissent on certain anatomical 

 points from the opinions of his friend and colaborer. The fol- 

 lowing very graceful tribute to the clearness of Prof. Huxley's 

 expositions appears in this author's article on Birds, contributed 

 to the ninth edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica (page 717) : 

 "The writer will often use the very words of Prof. Huxley, 

 despairing as he does of coming near that excellent writer either 

 in condensation or order." 



Huxley, as is well known, was a master hand in the construc- 

 tion of the English language. For elegance and force of diction 

 he had no superior perhaps not even an equal among the writers 

 of his day, and there are few purely literary men whose produc- 

 tions maintain so uniformly a high quality of excellence. In 

 borrowing from the decorative side of language, he never allowed 

 the embellishment of phrases to interfere with the clear statement 

 of what he had to convey either by word of mouth or of pen, or to 

 in any way cloud his meaning. Friends and foes thus knew his 

 position precisely, and he was always taken on his own recog- 

 nizance. A strict adherence to the sequence of truth, fact, and a 

 logical deduction from facts, was his maxim, and it was this that 

 assured his ground for battle, and carried him triumphantly 

 through nearly all his combats. As has before been remarked, 

 Huxley took little stock in brain -stuffing, yet it can in no way be 

 complained of that his own brain was " of the empty kind." The 

 range of topics that his conversation touched was almost bewilder- 

 ing, yet so discreetly was his knowledge dispensed that oftentimes 

 one assumed that he was making an inquiry, when, in fact, he was 

 giving the answer to it. Well do I recall a meeting on Brompton 



