1S39-40 GUIZOT 173 



hands of Erxleben and Lens Alclous, ' The 

 wonder is,' as he himself would frequently remark, 

 1 that he had any eyesight left at all.' But even 

 to extreme old age it was exceedingly good, 

 except that he could never endure a bright light 

 of any sort. 



After finishing Part I. of the ' Odontography,' 

 he was so much interested in the subject that he 

 immediately started on Part II. in spite of his 

 other work. Writing a short note to his wife 

 (September 23, 1840), he says : ' My hands will 

 be pretty full, with Catalogue, geological papers, 

 and Part II. of my " Odontography." The end 

 of September and beginning of October Owen 

 was at home, and his wife mentions how he 

 met Guizot at the Zoological Gardens, thus 

 describing the French Ambassador : ' He looks 

 a plain, business-like old man, but very keen- 

 looking, his thumbs stuck in his waistcoat sleeve- 

 holes (a £ Anglaise, as they call it). Richard after- 

 wards dined at the Athenaeum, and he told me 

 that he had mentioned the little waterworms that 

 I first noticed whilst looking attentively into our 

 glass globe. He said that nobody seemed to 

 know them. In examining them under the 

 microscope we saw three blood canals and an 

 alimentary canal. They are in incessant motion, 

 and work in an oblong hole, from which about 

 half their body emerges, throwing up a rampart 

 of earth round them of a regular form.' 



