Churchill has got over a whole batch of the American edition of the Vertebrata, so I have a respite. Mollusks are far more interesting—bugs sweeter—while the dinner crayfish hath no parallel for intense and absorbing interest in the three kingdoms of Nature.
What saith the Scripture? "Go to the ANT thou sluggard." In other words, study the Invertebrata.
Ever yours very faithfully,
T.H. Huxley.
[Sketch of a vast winged ant advancing on a midget, and saying, as it looks through a pair of eyeglasses, "Well, really, what an absurd creature!!">[
4 Marlborough Place, London, April 28, 1878.
My dear Haeckel,
Since the receipt of your letter three months ago, I have been making many inquiries about Medusae for you, but I could hear of none—and so I have delayed my reply, until I doubt not you have been blaspheming my apparent neglect.
My "Sammlung"!! [Collection.] My dear friend, my cabin on board H.M.S. "Rattlesnake" was 7 feet long, 6 feet wide, and 5 feet 6 inches high. When my bed and my clothes were in it, there was not much room for any collection, except the voluntary one made by some thousands of specimens of Blatta orientalis [The cockroach.], with whose presence I should have been very glad to dispense.
My Medusae were never published. I have heaps of notes and drawings and half-a-dozen engraved plates. But after the publication of the "Oceanic Hydrozoa" I was obliged to take to quite other occupations, and all that material is like the "full many a flower, born to blush unseen," of our poet.