1886 SCIENCE AND THE FISHERY BOARD ^7 



younger colleagues on the Council, who had not enjoyed 

 the same experience, thought that he had set aside their 

 expressions of opinion too brusquely, and begged Sir M. 

 Foster, as at once a close friend of his, and one to whose 

 opinion he paid great respect, to make representations to 

 him on their behalf, which he did in writing, being kept 

 at home by a cold. To this letter, in which his friend begged 

 him not to be vexed at a very plain statement of the other 

 point of view, but to make it possible for the younger men 

 to continue to follow his lead, he replied : — 



4 Marlborough Place, April 5, 1886. 



My dear Foster — Mrs. Foster is quite right in looking sharp 

 after your colds, which is very generous of me to say, as I am 

 down in the mouth and should have been cheered by a chat. 



I am very glad to know what our younger friends are think- 

 ing about. I made up my mind to some such result of the action 

 I have thought it necessary to take. But I have no ambition to 

 lead, and no desire to drive them, and if we can't agree, the best 

 way will be to go our ways separately. . . . 



Heaven forbid that I should restrain anybody from express- 

 ing any opinion in the world. But it is so obvious to me that 

 not one of our friends has the smallest notion of what adminis- 

 tration in fishery questions means, or of the danger of creating 

 a scientific Frankenstein in that which he is clamouring for, that 

 I suppose I have been over-anxious to prevent mischief, and 

 seemed domineering. 



Well, I shall mend my ways. I must be getting to be an old 

 savage if you think it risky to write anything to me. — Ever 

 yours, T. H. Huxley. 



But he did not stay long in London. By April 20 he 

 was off to Ilkley, where he expected to stay " for a week 

 or two, perhaps longer." On the 24th he writes to Sir M. 

 Foster : — 



I was beginning to get wrong before we left Bournemouth, 

 and went steadily down after our return to London, so that I had 



to call in a very shrewd fellow who attends my daughter M . 



Last Monday he told me that more physicking was no good, and 

 that I had better be off here, and see what exercise and the fresh 

 air of the moors would do for me. So here I came, and mean to 

 give the place a fair trial. 



