My life : a record of events and opinions - Wallace-online.org

256 MY LIFEas I could not stand the pain of three or four extractionsin succession. This thoroughly enraged him.He wrote me a most violent letter, saying he couldnot continue to be the friend of a man who could askhim to do such a thing, and gave me the name of anacquaintance of his who had no such scruples andwhose work was thoroughly good. And that was thelast communication I ever had from Dr. Purland.I will conclude this chapter with a few wordsabout those meetings of the British Association atwhich I was present. In 1862 I was invited by mykind friend, Professor Alfred Newton, to be his guestat Magdalen College during the meeting, in companywith a party of scientific friends, chiefly ornithologists.This was my first visit both to Cambridge and to theAssociation, and under such pleasant conditions Ithoroughly enjoyed both. Besides the number ofeminent men of science I had the opportunity ofhearing or seeing, I had the pleasure of spending anevening with Charles Kingsley in his own house, andenjoying his stimulating conversation. There wasalso a slight recrudescence of the evolution controversyin the rather painful dispute between Professor RichardOwen and Huxley, supported by Flower, on certainalleged differences between the brains of man andapes,I so much enjoyed the meeting, both in itsscientific and social aspects, that I attended the nexteleven meetings, and generally took part in some ofthe discussions, besides occasionally reading shortpapers. One of the most enjoyable meetings sociallywas that at Exeter, where I and a large party ofscientific men were hospitably entertained at a countrymansion eight or ten miles from the city, into whichwe were driven and brought back every day. Among