64 PROFESSOR OWEN ch. II. 



standing he has a fellowship, is going to enter the 

 busy world as a curate at Birmingham, preferring 

 activity to idle ease.' The letter concludes with 

 a note that ' the viollo is decidedly improved.' 



The following letter, written to Dr. Buckland 

 just before the publication of Owen's paper on the 

 Pearly Nautilus, is interesting as showing the im- 

 portance Owen himself attached to the work he 

 had just completed : — 



Richard Owen to the Rev. Dr. Buckland 



9 Symond's Inn : July 28, 1832. 



' My dear Sir, — As there may be still some 

 weeks' delay before the College copies of the de- 

 scription of Nautilus reach Oxford, I have taken 

 the liberty to send for your acceptance one of the 

 few private copies containing proofs from the first 

 fifty sets of plates. Since the decease of the 

 lamented Cuvier, there is no one whose opinion 

 on this work I look for with more anxiety than 

 your own. Being deeply impressed with the 

 responsibility attached to the examination of an 

 animal so rare, and regarded with so much interest 

 by the most eminent characters in the scientific 

 world both here and abroad, I have earnestly 

 endeavoured to be accurate in the descriptive part, 

 and neither to overlook nor overstate anything. But 

 until this account be confirmed by the examina- 

 tion of a second specimen, much of its value will 

 depend upon the light in which it is regarded by 



