[.December, 
756 Correspondence . 
these would become scattered through the population every in- 
ternal trait of the connexion would be lost, while none of the 
peculiarities, or none of consequence, would consciously survive, 
where they lived in a body, beyond some of the ways, folk-lore, 
or superstitions of the humblest classes of the community. With 
the Gipsies the case is altogether different, for the reason that 
they entered Great Britain not later than 1506, and were legally 
and socially proscribed, and have never been recognised by 
society in any way. As a migratory, tented, oriental tribe, that 
exists everywhere, they had, and have yet, a language and signs, 
and a cast of mind ora soul of nationality peculiar to themselves, 
with a sympathy, more or less modified, for the same people in 
every part of the world. The feelings peculiar to the primitive 
Gipsy are held by the offshoots from the tent, however much the 
blood is mixed, or improved by the circumstances applying to 
the ordinary population. As illustrative of this fadb we find 
that Mrs. Carlyle, who was “ one of them,” was indifferent to 
her native connexion, as fully admitted by Carlyle. The subjedt 
of the “ Pidts, Angles, and Jutes” may be called “dead 
anthropology,” while that of the Gipsies, in all its bearings, is 
“ ethnology on its legs,” embracing a large body of people, in 
many positions in life, existing in the British Islands (as well as 
in other countries), unacknowledged by the rest of the popula- 
tion. These the British Association seems to have ignored. 
With reference to Prof. Ray Lankester’s proposal for the 
“ Endowment of Research ” I said, in my “ Contributions to 
Natural History, &c.,” that original research is “ almost invari- 
ably, for a time at least, abased or refused the slightest courtesy 
when something has to give place to what is brought forward ” 
(p. 199) ; and that Prof. Huxley, when at Baltimore, in Septem- 
ber, 1876, “ while discouraging the vulgar expedient of offering 
money for it, said nothing of extending to it the courtesy of dis- 
cussion through the ordinary channels, doubtless for the reason 
that that aspedf of the question was not specially before the 
meeting ” (p. 200). There are many difficulties attending the 
“ Endowment of Research,” under whatever form it might be 
done ; but there should be none in the way of admitting research 
that has been made by the labour and at the expense of people 
individually. In that respedt zoologists should admit the exist- 
ence of the research into the question stated by White of 
Selborne, whether the viper (in common with some other snakes) 
“ opens her mouth and admits her helpless young down her 
throat on sudden surprises.” — I am, &c., 
James Simson. 
New York, November 9, 1883. 
