136 LIFE OF PROFESSOR HUXLEY CHAP. V 



breakfasts or other such fandangoes except those I accepted 

 before leaving home. Sunday I spent quietly here, 

 thinking over my lecture and putting my peroration, 

 which required a good deal of care, into shape. I 

 wandered out into the fields in the afternoon, and sat a 

 long time thinking of all that had happened since I was 

 here a young beginner, two and twenty, and . . . you 

 were largely in my thoughts, which were full of blessings 

 and tender memories. 



I had a good night's work last night. I dined with 

 the President of the College, then gave my lecture. After 

 that I smoked a bit with Foster till eleven o'clock, and 

 then I went to the Northern Wliig office to see that the 

 report of my lecture was all right It is the best paper 

 here, and the Editor had begged me to see to the report, 

 and I was anxious myself that I should be rightly repre- 

 sented. So I sat there till a quarter past one having the 

 report read and correcting it when necessary. Then I 

 came home and got to bed about two. I have just been 

 to the section and read my paper there to a large 

 audience who cannot have understood ten words of it, but 

 who looked highly edified, and now I have done. Our 

 lodging has turned out admirably, and Ball's company 

 has been very pleasant. So that the fiasco of our arrange- 

 ments was all for the best. 



I take the account of this last-mentioned paper in 

 Section D from the report in Nature : 



Professor Huxley opened the last day of the session 

 with au account of his recent observations on the develop- 

 ment of the Columella auris in Amphibia. (He described 

 it as an outgrowth of the periotic capsule, and therefore 

 unconnected with any visceral arch.) . . . 



In the absence of Mr. Parker there was no one 

 competent to criticise the paper from personal knowledge ; 

 but a word dropped as to the many changes in the 



