274 LONDON AND CAMBRIDGE. 



months in Cambridge, and then when, by your assistance, I 

 know on what ground I stand, to emigrate to London, where 

 I can complete my Geology and try to push on the Zoology. 

 I assure you I grieve to find how many things make me see 

 the necessity of living for some time in this dirty, odious 

 London. For even in Geology I suspect much assistance 

 and communication will be necessary in this quarter, for 

 instance, in fossil bones, of which none excepting the frag- 

 ments of Megatherium have been looked at, and I clearly 

 see that without my presence they never would be. ... 



** I only wish I had known the Botanists cared so much 

 for specimens * and the Zoologists so little ; the proportional 

 number of specimens in the two branches should have had 

 a very different appearance. I am out of patience with the 

 Zoologists, not because they are overworked, but for their 

 mean, quarrelsome spirit. I went the other evening to the 

 Zoological Society, where the speakers were snarling at each 

 other in a manner anything but like that of gentlemen. 

 Thank Heavens ! as long as I remain in Cambridge there 

 will not be any danger of falling into any such contemptible 

 quarrels, whilst in London I do not see how it is to be 

 avoided. Of the Naturalists, F. Hope is out of London ; 

 Westwood I have not seen, so about my insects I know 

 nothing. I have seen Mr. Yarrell twice, but he is so evi- 

 dently oppressed with business that it is too selfish to plague 

 him with my concerns. He has asked me to dine with the 

 Linnean on Tuesday, and on Wednesday I dine with the 

 Geological, so that I shall see all the great men. Mr. Bell, 



* A passage in a subsequent to him, ' You forget how long it is 

 letter shows that his plants also since Captain King's expedition.' 

 gave him some anxiety. "I met He answered, 'Indeed, I have some- 

 Mr. Brown a few days after you thing in the shape of Captain King's 

 had called on him ; he asked me in undescribed plants to make me 

 rather an ominous manner what I recollect it.' Could a better reason 

 meant to do with my plants. In the be given, if I had been asked, by 

 course of conversation Mr. Erode- me, for not giving the plants to the 

 rip, who was present, remarked British Museum ? " 



