64 
PROFESSOR OWEN 
CH. II. 
Standing he has a fellowship, is going to enter the 
busy world as a curate at Birmingham, preferring 
activity to idle ease.’ The letter concludes with 
a note that ‘ the viollo is decidedly improved.’ 
The following letter, written to Dr. Buckland 
just before the publication of Owen’s paper on the 
Pearly Nautilus, is interesting as showing the im- 
portance Owen himself attached to the work he 
had just completed : — 
Richard Owen to the Rev. Dr. Btickland 
9 Symond’s Inn : July 28, 1832. 
‘ My dear Sir, — -As there may be still some 
weeks’ delay before the College copies of the de- 
scription of Nautilus reach Oxford, I have taken 
the liberty to send for your acceptance one of the 
few private copies containing proofs from the first 
fifty sets of plates. Since the decease of the 
lamented Cuvier, there is no one whose opinion 
on this work I look for with more anxiety than 
your own. Being deeply impressed with the 
responsibility attached to the examination of an 
animal so rare, and regarded with so much interest 
by the most eminent characters in the scientific 
world both here and abroad, I have earnestly 
endeavoured to be accurate in the descriptive part, 
and neither to overlook nor overstate anything. But 
until this account be confirmed by the examina- 
tion of a second specimen, much of its value will 
depend upon the light in which it is regarded by 
