iS74 LETTER TO HAECKEL 457 



which is my new, are concerned, I hope to remain as constant as 

 a persistent bigamist can be said to be. 



It will give me great pleasure to dine with you, and Dec. I 

 will suit me excellently well. — Ever yours very faithfully, 



T. H. Huxley. 



The year winds up with a New Year's greeting to 

 Professor Haeckel. 



4 Marlborough Place, London, N.W., 

 Dec. 28, 1S74. 



My dear Haeckel — This must reach you in time to wish 

 you and yours a happy New Year in English fashion. May 

 your shadow never be less, and may all your enemies, unbeliev- 

 ing dogs who resist the Prophet of Evolution, be defiled by the 

 sitting of jackasses upon their grandmothers' graves ! an oriental 

 wish appropriate to an ex-traveller in Egypt. 



I have written a notice of the " Anthropogenic " for the 

 Academy, but I am so busy that I am afraid I should never have 

 done it — but for being put into a great passion — by an article 

 in the Quarterly Rcvino for last July, which I read only a few 



days ago. My friend Mr. , to whom I had to administer a 



gentle punishment some time ago, has been at the same tricks 

 again, but much worse than his former performance — you will 

 see that I have dealt with as you deal with a " Pfaffe." * There 

 are " halb-Pfaffen " as well as " halb-Affen." f So if what I 

 say about " Anthropogenic " seems very little — to what I say 

 about the Quarterly Review — do not be offended. It will all 

 serve the good cause. 



I have been working very hard lately at the lower vertebrata, 

 and getting out results which will interest you greatly. Your 

 suggestion that Rathke's canals in Amphioxus X are the Wolffian 

 ducts was a capital shot, but it just missed the mark because 

 Rathke's canals do not exist. Nevertheless there are two half 

 canals, the dorsal walls of which meet in the raphe described 

 by Stieda, and the plaited lining of this wall (a) is, I believe, 

 the renal organ. Moreover, I have found the skull and brain of 

 Amphioxus, both of which are very large (like a vertebrate 

 embryo's) instead of being rudimentary as we all have thought, 

 and exhibit the primitive segmentation of the " Urwirbelthier " " 

 skull. 



* Parson. f Lit. half-apes ; the Prosimite and Lemurs. 



X The Lancelet. * Primitive vertebrate. 



