Diploma from Vienna. 183 



acknowledgment of the eminent services Science owes 

 to you, especially as I feel myself deeply indebted for 

 all the kindness and assistance you have been pleased 

 to bestow on me. I beg leave to profit of the present 

 occasion for offering you again my warmest thanks 

 for the kindness of which you gave me so many valu- 

 able proofs during my last visit to your country, and 

 to express the hope that you will be pleased to con- 

 tinue the scientific intercourse begun under auspices 

 so favourable to me. 



" Believe me, sir, in highest esteem, 



" For ever yours most truly, 

 "GEORG RITT. v. FRAUENFELD. 



"Vienna, August 17, 1865." 



Such a letter does honour both to the writer and the 

 receiver. But so little was Mr. Robertson inclined to 

 trumpet his own distinctions, that when some years 

 later he happened in signing a scientific paper to 

 designate himself a member of this society of Vienna, 

 he was supposed to be joking, until he produced the 

 emblazoned diploma itself, the wording of which we 

 have copied above. 



From his voluminous correspondence with A. M. 

 Norman, one of Norman's letters will here be in point. 

 It does not exemplify the valuable stream of natural 

 history knowledge which flows through that writer's 

 epistles in general, and an account of which would 

 belong rather to his biography than to the present, 

 but it illustrates the sort of appeal to which, both by 

 him and by many others, Mr. Robertson was expected 

 freely and readily to respond : 



