336 PROFESSOR OWEN CH. x. 
sea-serpent, one for the Admiralty and one for 
homed I also got Ainsworth’s “ Lancashire 
Witches ” for R. I always get these sort of 
books for him during lecture season, as the best 
sort of relaxation after hard work.’ 
On March 29 Owen writes to his sister that 
at a dinner at Lord Carlisle’s he sat next to 
Charles Dickens and had much pleasant conver- 
sation with him, and in the same letter he says : 
‘Yesterday we had J. M. W. Turner to dinner 
here, and I took him with Willie to Lincoln’s 
Inn Chapel, and then to the Zoological Gardens.’ 
The diary then contains the following entries : — ■ 
'April 14. — Mr. Duncan here. He is our 
Charge d’ Affaires at Dahomey. It seems a 
present of peacocks is to be given to the King 
there, in order to induce him to make us a 
present of a hippopotamus.’ 
‘ 2ist . — Two amusing envelopes to-day. One 
from France, addressed to “ Sir Owen, Directeur 
de I’Academie des Sciences a Londres,’ the other 
from Perm (wherever that may be), addressed to 
‘ Son Eccellence Richard de Ouen.’ This last 
was concerning the aurochs, and the title has a 
crusading flavour about it’ 
‘ 2Wt . — With R. to the Royal Institution. We 
5 The Admiralty sent all the occasion he demonstrated it to be 
reports of ‘Great Sea-serpents’ two whales, which under certain 
which they received to Professor conditions might give the ap- 
Owen for his opinion. On this pearance of a great sea-serpent. 
