214 REMINISCENCES OF HUXLEY 
getting his victim’s remains out of the way. “ Well,” 
quoth Huxley, “there’s a good deal of substance in a 
human body. It isn’t easy to dispose of so,much 
corpus delictt,—a reflection which has frequently 
deterred me when on the point of killing somebody.” 
At such remarks a soft ripple of laughter would run 
about the room, with murmurs of “Oh, Pater!” It 
was just the same in his lectures to his students. In 
the simple old experiment illustrating reflex action, a 
frog, whose brain had been removed, was touched upon 
the right side of the back with a slightly irritating acid, 
and would forthwith reach up with his right hind leg 
and rub the place. The next thing in order was to tie 
the right leg, whereupon the left leg would come up, 
and by dint of strenuous effort reach the itching spot. 
One day the stretching was so violent as to result in 
a particularly elaborate and comical somersault on the 
part of the frog, whereupon Huxley exclaimed, “ You 
see, it doesn’t require much of a brain to be an acrobat!” 
In an examination on anatomy a very callow lad got 
the valves of the heart wrong, putting the mitral on 
the right side; but Huxley took compassion on him, 
with the remark, “ Poor little beggar! I never got 
them correctly myself until I reflected that a bishop 
was never in the right!” On another occasion, at the 
end of a lecture, he asked one of the students if he 
understood it all. The student replied, ‘“ All, sir, but 
one part, during which you stood between me and the 
blackboard.” “Ah,” rejoined Huxley, “I did my best 
to make myself clear, but could not make myself 
transparent!” ? 
1 | have here eked out my own reminiscences by instances cited from 
Leonard Huxley’s book. 
