n8 PROFESSOR OWEN ch. iv. 



told her ; and commended my intention to bid 

 them a lasting farewell ! I really believe I shall 

 be able to manage it. How odd that, besides an 

 acquaintance with a Bonaparte, spending a week 

 at his Palazzo at Rome, with the old Emperor's 

 Longwood furniture in my bedroom, I should come 

 to have a letter from a son of Napoleon's beau 

 sabreur, as he used to call the fiery Murat. 

 Some of my scientific relations have brought me 

 into such cognizance with one of the family as to 

 have procured me this sheet from the would-be 

 King of Naples.' 



In May 1861 Professor Owen delivered a 

 series of four lectures at Norwich on ' Recent 

 and Fossil Mammalia.' These were of a some- 

 what elementary description, as may be seen from 

 the following extracts from his introductory lec- 

 ture ; but they may serve as an example of his 

 style of 4 popular' lecturing. He began by remark- 

 ing that all animals were divided into two great 

 groups — one in which there was no backbone, and 

 no internal hard framework or skeleton, the other 

 in which these characteristics existed. The latter, 

 which was the higher division, was called the 

 vertebrate division. This was divided into other 

 divisions ; one-half being of about the same 

 temperature as the atmosphere in which they 

 lived, while the other half were enabled, by the 

 more perfect and complex character of their or- 

 ganisation, to preserve a more fixed and definite 



