lS72 LETTERS TO DOHRN 403 



the Brighton meeting. In which case you will have to pay us a 

 visit, wherever we may be — where, we have not yet made up 

 our minds, but it will not be so far as St. Andrews. 



Now for a piece of business. The new Governor of Ceylon 

 is a friend of mine, and is proposing to set up a Natural History 

 Museum in Ceylon. He wants a curator — some vigorous fellow 

 with plenty of knowledge and power of organisation who will 

 make use of his great opportunities. He tells me he thinks he 

 can start him with £350 a year (and a house), with possible 

 increase to £400. I do not know any one here who would an- 

 swer the purpose. Can you recommend me any one? If you 

 can let me know at once, and don't take so long in writing to 

 me as I have been in writing to you. 



I await the " Prophecies of the Holy Antonius " * anxiously. 

 Like the Jews of old, I come of an unbelieving generation, and 

 need a sign. The bread and the oil, also the chamber in the 

 wall, shall not fail the prophet when he comes in August: nor 

 Donner and Blitzes either. 



I leave the rest of the space for the wife. — Ever yours, 



T. H. H. 



The following is in reply to a jest of Dr. Dohrn's — who 

 was still a bachelor — upon a friend's unusual sort of offering 

 to a young lady. 



I suspected the love affair you speak of, and thought the 

 young damsel very attractive. I suppose it will come to nothing, 

 even if he be disposed to add his hand to the iron and quinine, 

 in the next present he offers. . . . And, oh my Diogenes, happy 

 in a tub of arthropodous Entwickelungsgeschichte,f despise not 

 beefsteaks, nor wives either. They also are good. 



Jermyn Street, June 5. 1872. 

 My dear Dohrn — I have written to the Governor of Ceylon, 

 and enclosed the first half of your letter to me as he under- 

 stands High Dutch. I have told him that the best thing he can 

 do is to write to you at Naples and tell you he will be very 

 happy to see you as soon as you can come. And that if you do 

 come you will give him the best possible advice about his 

 museum, and let him have no rest until he has given you a site 

 for a zoological station. 



* His work on the development of the Arthropoda. 

 f History of Development, 



