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THE ZOOLOGIST. 



general appearance, accompanied by a further instalment of 

 coloured plates, which now reach the respectable figure of one 

 hundred and twenty-two. Sir G. Hampson is writing a monu- 

 mental series of volumes the contents of which will take long to 

 grow old. 



EDITORIAL GLEANINGS. 



The ' Evening News ' recently sent a special correspondent to 

 Darwin's village, and from his report we extract the following state- 

 ment that should be preserved : — I had been told to look up Mr. John 

 Lewis in the village, who used to do all the carpentry and joining 

 work for the house. I found him in his cottage, a short hale man 

 with white hair and beard and a rare smile. " I hear you are quite 

 an old friend of Mr. Darwin's." He straightened himself at once. 

 " I went to him sixty years ago as a page for two years. I was fifteen 

 then. Now I am seventy-five. I made Mr. Darwin's coffin" (this 

 with a look of important affairs). 11 They buried him in Westminster 

 Abbey, but he always wanted to lie here, and I don't think he'd have 

 liked it. I made his coffin just as he wanted it ; all rough, just as it 

 left the bench, no polish, no nothin'. But when they agreed to send 

 him to Westminster they had to get another undertaker. And my 

 coffin wasn't wanted, and they sent it back. This other one you 

 could see to shave in. I kept the coffin by me a long time. I thought 

 I might sell it. I got several bids of fifty poun', but didn't part with 

 it. One gentleman I told about it said, 'Ask two hundred, you'll get 

 it easy.' But I never did. I can show you letters from America and 

 Germany about it." "What became of the coffin?" I asked, "I sold 

 it for ten pounds to a young chap that kept a beerhouse out at Farn- 

 borough. He's dead since then." I gathered that the coffin is still 

 in the " beerhouse." " Darwin laid in that coffin thirty-one and a half 

 hours exactly. I put him in myself." — Evening Neivs, Feb. 12th, 1909. 



A remarkable case claimed the attention of the medical staff at 

 the West Norfolk and Lynn Hospital on Sunday. A twelve-months'- 

 old infant named West, whose parents reside in Attoe's Yard, Norfolk 

 Street, Lynn, was received into the institution suffering from severe 

 wounds, as a result of being attacked by rats as it lay in bed. Portions 

 of the child's feet were eaten away by the animals, and the infant was 

 also bitten about the face, arms, and body. — East Anglian Daily Times, 

 Jan. 26th, 1909. 



