I877-] THE LAST DAYS. 339 



Henry had sanctioned his going to Philadelphia, in July, to 

 study books and Chitons, and he hoped to visit Mr. Bland on 

 his way, and perhaps to spend a few weeks on the Jay Collec- 

 tions in the American Museum : but above all he wanted to 

 finish his Chiton manuscript for the Smithsonian : " congenial, 

 but very close and difficult work." " We will have a talk about 

 genera, also about nomenclature : I am a member of the 

 British Association Committee [see p. 273], and absolutely dis- 

 sent from the mere priority school : . . . nor do I see how such 

 things can be settled by committees of one, and separate letters. 

 In this work, pre-eminently, naturalists should meet and argue 

 together, before anything is settled. . . . We both scramble 

 through the days and weeks somehow ; and count the latter to 

 holiday, like any schoolboy. Would that you had holiday ! " 

 He wrote from the College (April 19), where he was busy after 

 school with Boston shells. 



On April 23 he sent a card to Mr. T. H. Barker, of the 

 United Kingdom Alliance : — " The clippings have waited, 

 hoping that I could write about some of them, but I can't. 

 Can oitly just keep working, head above water. Please always 

 forward scraps about Indians to Chesson,* Abor. Pr. Soc. • and 

 any about prisons to Mary C. (aet. 70), Red Lodge House, 

 Bristol. . . . How much do you wish me to subscribe this year? 

 I asked before." (The special subscriptions guaranteed for 

 five years were now ending : his had been ^5 per annum.) 



In the latter part of May we heard tidings from his wife, 

 that made us very uneasy ; but we were not prepared for the 

 telegram which brought us the news of his death, on May 24. 

 Two days after, her letter of May 14 arrived, saying that his 

 illness was pronounced to be typhoid fever ; on May 18 she 

 wrote again, that their friend Dr. Campbell brought another 



* Mr. Chesson informs me that latterly he had heard from him chiefly 

 through the medium of printed extracts from the Canada press: — "I 

 always had occasion to admire the judgment which dictated the selection of 

 these extracts, seeing that they rendered voluminous correspondence un- 

 necessary. I wish we were likely to find in Canada another correspondent 

 who combined in an equal degree his carefulness, ability, and zeal." 



