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.

If you would pay us a visit you should look through the whole mass, if you liked, and you might find something interesting.

At present, I am very busy about Crayfishes (Flusskrebse), working out the relations between their structure and their Geographical Distribution, which are very curious and interesting.

I have also nearly finished the anatomy of Spirula for the “Challenger.”  It is essentially a cuttlefish, and the shell is really internal.  With only one specimen, it has been a long and troublesome job—­but I shall establish all the essential points and give half-a-dozen plates of anatomy.

You will recollect my eldest little daughter?  She is going to be married next Saturday.  It is the first break in our family, and we are very sad to lose her—­though well satisfied with her prospects.  She is but just twenty and a charming girl, though you may put that down to fatherly partiality if you like.

The second daughter has taken to art, and will make a painter if she be wise enough not to marry for some years.

My eldest son who comes next is taller than I am.  He has been at one of the Scotch Universities for the last six months; and one of these fine days, next month, you will see a fair-haired stripling asking for Herr Professor Haeckel.

I am going to send him to Jena for three months to pick up your noble vernacular; and in the meanwhile to continue his Greek and Mathematics, in which the young gentleman is fairly proficient.  If you can recommend any Professor under whom he can carry on his studies, it will be a great kindness.

I will give him a letter to you, and while I beg you not to give yourself any trouble about him, I need not say I shall be very grateful for any notice you may take of him.

I am giving him as much independence of action as possible, in order that he may learn to take care of himself.

Now that is enough about my children.  Yours must yet be young—­and you have not yet got to the marriage and university stage—­which I assure you is much more troublesome than the measles and chicken-pox period.

My wife unites with me in kindest remembrances and good wishes.

Ever yours very faithfully,