1868 BATHYBIUS 427 



and found no better explanation to give of it. How- 

 ever, not only were the expectations that it was very 

 widely distributed over the Atlantic bottom falsified 

 in 1879 by the researches of the Challenger expedition, 

 but the behaviour of certain deep-sea specimens gave 

 good ground for suspecting that what had been sent 

 home before as genuine deep-sea mud was a pre- 

 cipitate due to the action on the specimens of the 

 spirit in which they were preserved. Though 

 Haeckel, with his special experience of Monera, 

 refused to desert Bathybius, a close parallel to which 

 was found off Greenland in 1876, the rest of its 

 sponsors gave it up. Whatever it might be as a 

 matter of possibility, the particular evidence upon 

 which it had been described was tainted. Once 

 assured of this, Huxley characteristically took the 

 bull by the horns. Without waiting for any one 

 else to come forward, he made public renunciation 

 of Bathybius at the British Association in 1879. 1 

 The "eating of the leek" as recommended to his 

 friend Dohrn (July 7, 1868), was not merely a 

 counsel for others, but was a prescription followed by 

 himself on occasion : 



As you know, I did not think you were on the right 

 track with, the Arthropods, and I am not going to profess 

 to be sorry that you have finally worked yourself to that 

 conclusion. 



As to the unlucky publication in the Journal of 

 Anatomy and Physiology, you have read your Shakespeare 



1 See vol. ii. p. 268, sq. 



