LIFE OF ELIE METCHNIKOFF 61 



house of his friends B , who received him with 



open arms ; it was a great joy to him to find himself 

 in friendly surroundings after the recent strife. Im- 

 pulsive and impressionable as he was, the disagree- 

 able incidents he had traversed made him yearn to 

 leave Odessa, a desire which was to be promptly 

 realised. His communications had great success at 

 the Congress ; the President even invited him to 

 read a paper at the general meeting ; but, though 

 strongly attracted by this proposal, which would 

 have allowed the young scientist to expose his ideas 

 on the comparative development of the embryonic 

 layers, he refused it, considering that that complicated 

 question was not yet sufficiently matured. 



Nevertheless, the Congress had brought him into 

 prominence and was the cause of his obtaining a 

 Professorship of Zoology at Petersburg. Moreover, 

 he had the additional good fortune of being given a 

 scientific mission and went abroad to work until the 

 autumn term. 



He went to Naples in the spring of 1868, thinking 

 to find Kovalevsky there, instead of which he found 

 a letter from his friend awaiting him. The latter had 

 had to go to Messina for urgent embryological work 

 and begged Elie to look after his wife and new-born 

 child. Metchnikoff did so most willingly until he was 

 able to send them off to Messina. He himself followed 

 soon after, for Kovalevsky wrote him that zoological 

 specimens and conditions of work were far better at 

 Messina than Naples. This time, Metchnikoff under- 

 took the study of Sponges and Echinodermata. The 

 two friends worked unceasingly, but Elie's sight was 

 too weak for such excessive fatigue ; he was again 

 obliged to interrupt his studies for a while, and during 



