262 PROFESSOR OWEN ch. ix. 



few great bones repose gracefully against a tree 

 in that wooded part of the garden which has 

 always been left entirely to Nature. These little 

 woods are still full of the wild flowers which the 

 Professor gathered in his travels on the Continent 

 or his rambles in the country, the roots of which 

 he brought home with him and planted himself. 



Thus his latter days peacefully glided away. 

 His old friends were gradually leaving him, and 

 of his scientific contemporaries hardly any re- 

 mained, so many changes of scientific thought 

 had he lived to see, and so long a period had his 

 life embraced. The last letter which he received 

 from perhaps the oldest of them, Lord Enniskillen, 

 is dated August 19, 1885 : ' Neither of us,' he 

 writes, ' my dear old friend, are so young as we 

 were, nor nearly so active as when we used to 

 clamber over the cliffs with Mary Anning. 4 By- 

 the-by, I have just bought from a nephew of 

 Mary's a number of drawings and manuscripts, 

 many of them by De la Beche and Conybeare, 

 but I have not examined them yet.' 



In proportion as Sir Richard's memory 

 became more failing with regard to present- 

 day matters, it became all the clearer as to the 

 time of his schooldays and early youth. 



He often used to tell stories of his school- 

 fellows, and still oftener of his mother, of her 

 goodness to him, of her love of music. He 



4 The collector at Lyme Regis. 



