CHAPTER XIV 

 1883 



THE pressure of official work, which had been 

 constantly growing since 1880, reached its highest 

 point in 1883. Only one scientific memoir 1 was 

 published by him this year, and then no more for 

 the next four years. The intervals of lecturing and 

 examining were chiefly filled by fishery business, 

 from which, according to his usual custom when 

 immersed in any investigation, he chose the subject, 

 "Oysters and the Oyster Question," both for his 

 Friday evening discourse at the Eoyal Institution 

 on May 11, and for his course to Working Men 

 between Jan. 8 and Feb. 12. 



There are the usual notes of all seasons at all 

 parts of England. A deserted hotel at Cromer in 

 January was uninviting. 



My windows look out on a wintry sea, and it is bitter 

 cold. Notwithstanding, a large number of the aquatic 



1 Contributions to Morphology, Ichthyopsida, No. 2. On the 

 Oviducts of Osmerus ; with remarks on the relations of the 

 Teleostean with the Ganoid Fishes (Proc. Zool. Soc. 1883, pp. 

 132-139). 



331 



