other friends.

I am sorry to say that a mere fragment of what I originally intended to
have published has appeared, the series having been concluded when I
reached the end of the Crustacea. To say truth, the Lectures were not
fitted for the journal in which they appeared.

I did not know that anyone in Germany had noticed them until I received
the copy of your "Bericht" for 1856, which you were kind enough to send
me. I owe you many thanks for the manner in which you speak of them, and
I assure you it was a source of great pleasure and encouragement to me
to find so competent a judge as yourself appreciating and sympathising
with my objects.

Particular branches of zoology have been cultivated in this country with
great success, as you are well aware, but ten years ago I do not believe
that there were half a dozen of my countrymen who had the slightest
comprehension of morphology, and of what you and I should call
"Wissenschaftliche Zoologie."

Those who thought about the matter at all took Owen's osteological
extravaganzas for the ne plus ultra of morphological speculation.

I learned the meaning of Morphology and the value of development as the
criterion of morphological views--first, from the study of the Hydrozoa
during a long voyage, and secondly, from the writings of Von Baer. I
have done my best, both by precept and practice, to inaugurate better
methods and a better spirit than had long prevailed. Others have taken
the same views, and I confidently hope that a new epoch for zoology is
dawning among us. I do not claim for myself any great share in the good