336 PROFESSOR OWEN ch. x. 



sea-serpent, one for the Admiralty and one for 

 home. 5 I also got Ainsworth's " Lancashire 

 Witches " for R. I always get these sort of 

 books for him during lecture season, as the best 

 sort of relaxation after hard work.' 



On March 29 Owen writes to his sister that 

 at a dinner at Lord Carlisle's he sat next to 

 Charles Dickens and had much pleasant conver- 

 sation with him, and in the same letter he says : 

 'Yesterday we had J. M. W. Turner to dinner 

 here, and I took him with Willie to Lincoln's 

 Inn Chapel, and then to the Zoological Gardens.' 



The diary then contains the following entries : — 



'April 14. — Mr. Duncan here. He is our 

 Charge d' Affaires at Dahomey. It seems a 

 present of peacocks is to be given to the King 

 there, in order to induce him to make us a 

 present of a hippopotamus.' 



' 2\st. — Two amusing envelopes to-day. One 

 from France, addressed to " Sir Owen, Directeur 

 de l'Academie des Sciences a Londres,' the other 

 from Perm (wherever that may be), addressed to 

 1 Son Eccellence Richard de Ouen.' This last 

 was concerning the aurochs, and the title has a 

 crusading flavour about it.' 



' 28///. — With R. to the Royal Institution. We 



5 The Admiralty sent all the occasion he demonstrated it to be 



reports of ' Great Sea-serpents ' two whales, which under certain 



which they received to Professor conditions might give the ap- 



Owen for his opinion. On this pearance of a great sea-serpent. 



