A Christ Church man, named Wilmot, who is just returned from the West Indies, dined in Hall.  He told us some curious things about the insects in South America—­one that he had himself seen was a spider charming a cockroach with flashes of light; they were both on the wall, the spider about a yard the highest, and the light was like a glow-worm, only that it came by flashes and did not shine continuously; the cockroach gradually crawled up to it, and allowed itself to be taken and killed.

A few months afterwards, when in town and visiting Mr. Munroe’s studio, he found there two of the children of Mr. George Macdonald, whose acquaintance he had already made:  “They were a girl and boy, about seven and six years old—­I claimed their acquaintance, and began at once proving to the boy, Greville, that he had better take the opportunity of having his head changed for a marble one.  The effect was that in about two minutes they had entirely forgotten that I was a total stranger, and were earnestly arguing the question as if we were old acquaintances.”  Mr. Dodgson urged that a marble head would not have to be brushed and combed.  At this the boy turned to his sister with an air of great relief, saying, “Do you hear that, Mary?  It needn’t be combed!” And the narrator adds, “I have no doubt combing, with his great head of long hair, like Hallam Tennyson’s, was the misery of his life.  His final argument was that a marble head couldn’t speak, and as I couldn’t convince either that he would be all the better for that, I gave in.”

[Illustration:  George Macdonald and his daughter Lily. From a photograph by Lewis Carroll.]

In November he gave a lecture at a meeting of the Ashmolean Society on “Where does the Day begin?” The problem, which was one he was very fond of propounding, may be thus stated:  If a man could travel round the world so fast that the sun would be always directly above his head, and if he were to start travelling at midday on Tuesday, then in twenty-four hours he would return to his original point of departure, and would find that the day was now called Wednesday—­at what point of his journey would the day change its name?  The difficulty of answering this apparently simple question has cast a gloom over many a pleasant party.

On December 12th he wrote in his Diary:—­

Visit of the Queen to Oxford, to the great surprise of everybody, as it had been kept a secret up to the time.  She arrived in Christ Church about twelve, and came into Hall with the Dean, where the Collections were still going on, about a dozen men being in Hall.  The party consisted of the Queen, Prince Albert, Princess Alice and her intended husband, the Prince of Hesse-Darmstadt, the Prince of Wales, Prince Alfred, and suite.  They remained a minute or two looking at the pictures, and the Sub-Dean was presented:  they then visited the Cathedral and Library.  Evening entertainment