214 LIFE OF PROFESSOR HUXLEY CHAP. VIII 



the year slip away without sending you all our good 

 wishes for its successor which I hope will not vanish 

 without seeing you among us. 



I blew your trumpet the other day at the London 

 Institution in a lecture about the Horse question. I did 

 not know then that you had got another step back as I 

 see you have by the note to my last lecture, which 

 Youmans has just sent me. 



I must thank you very heartily for the pains you 

 have taken over the woodcuts of the lectures. It is a 

 great improvement to have the patterns of the grinders. 



I have promised to give a lecture at the Royal Institu- 

 tion on the 21st January next, and I am thinking of 

 discoursing on the Birds with teeth. Have you anything 

 new to tell on that subject? I have implicit faith in 

 the inexhaustibility of the contents of those boxes. 



Our voyage home was not so successful as that out. 

 The weather was cold and I got a chill which laid me up 

 for several days, in fact I was not well for some weeks 

 after my return. But I am vigorous again now. 



Pray remember me kindly to all New Haven friends. 

 My wife joins with me in kindest regards and good 

 wishes for the new year. " Tell him we expect to see 

 him next year." I am, yours very faithfully, 



T. H. HUXLEY. 



On December 16 he delivered a lecture "On the 

 Study of Biology," in connection with the Loan 

 Collection of Scientific Apparatus at South Kensing- 

 ton (Coll. Essays, iii. 262), dealing with the origin of 

 the name Biology, its relation to Sociology " we 

 have allowed that province of Biology to become 

 autonomous ; but I should like you to recollect that 

 this is a sacrifice, and that you should not be 

 surprised if it occasionally happens that you see a 



