One year’s work as Inspector was very like another.  In 1882, for instance, on January 21, he is at Berwick, “voiceless but jolly”; in the spring he had to attend a Fisheries Exhibition in Edinburgh, and writes:—­]

April 12.

We have opened our Exhibition, and I have been standing about looking at the contents until my back is broken.

April 13.

The weather here is villainous—­a regular Edinburgh “coorse day.”  I have seen all I wanted to see of the Exhibition, eaten two heavy dinners, one with Primrose and one with Young, and want to get home.  Walpole and I are dining domestically at home this evening, having virtuously refused all invitations.

[In June he was in Hampshire; on July 25 he writes from Tynemouth:—­]

I reached here about 5 o’clock, and found the bailiff or whatever they call him of the Board of Conservators, awaiting me with a boat at my disposal.  So we went off to look at what they call “The Playground”—­two bays in which the salmon coming from the sea rest and disport themselves until a fresh comes down the river and they find it convenient to ascend.  Harbottle bailiff in question is greatly disturbed at the amount of poaching that goes on in the playground, and unfolded his griefs to me at length.  It was a lovely evening, very calm, and I enjoyed my boat expedition.  To-morrow there is to be another to see the operations of a steam trawler, which in all probability I shall not enjoy so much.  I shall take a light breakfast.

[These were the pleasanter parts of the work.  The less pleasant was sitting all day in a crowded court, hearing a disputed case of fishing rights, or examining witnesses who stuck firmly to views about fish which had long been exploded by careful observation.  But on the whole he enjoyed it, although it took him away from research in other departments.  This summer, on the death of Professor Rolleston, he was sounded on the question whether he would consent to accept the Linacre Professorship of Physiology at Oxford.  He wrote to the Warden of Merton:—­]

4 Marlborough Place, June 22, 1881.

My dear Brodrick,

Many thanks for your letter.  I can give you my reply at once, as my attention has already been called to the question you ask; and it is that I do not see my way to leaving London for Oxford.  My reasons for arriving at this conclusion are various.  I am getting old, and you should have a man in full vigour.  I doubt whether the psychical atmosphere of Oxford would suit me, and still more, whether I should suit it after a life spent in the absolute freedom of London.  And last, but by no means least, for a man with five children to launch into the world, the change would involve a most serious loss of income.  No doubt there are great attractions on the other side; and, if I had been ten years younger, I should have been sorely tempted to go to Oxford, if the University would have had me.  But things being as they are, I do not see my way to any other conclusion than that which I have reached.