scientific
investigator, the fury of contradiction you can arouse in him. It is
the _odium theologicum_ in a new form. There are men, for instance,
who would gladly burn Professor Ray Lankester at Smithfield for
his treatment of the Mollusca in the Encyclopaedia. That fantastic
extension of the Cephalopods to cover the Pteropods ... But I wander
from Hapley and Pawkins.

It began years and years ago, with a revision of the Microlepidoptera
(whatever these may be) by Pawkins, in which he extinguished a new
species created by Hapley. Hapley, who was always quarrelsome, replied
by a stinging impeachment of the entire classification of Pawkins[A].
Pawkins, in his "Rejoinder[B]," suggested that Hapley's microscope
was as defective as his powers of observation, and called him an
"irresponsible meddler"--Hapley was not a professor at that time.
Hapley, in his retort[C], spoke of "blundering collectors," and
described, as if inadvertently, Pawkins' revision as a "miracle of
ineptitude." It was war to the knife. However, it would scarcely
interest the reader to detail how these two great men quarrelled, and
how the split between them widened until from the Microlepidoptera
they were at war upon every open question in entomology. There were
memorable occasions. At times the Royal Entomological Society meetings
resembled nothing so much as the Chamber of Deputies. On the whole, I
fancy Pawkins was nearer the truth than Hapley. But Hapley was skilful
with his rhetoric, had a turn for ridicule rare in a scientific man,
was endowed with vast energy, and had a fine sense of injury in the
matter of the extinguished species; while Pawkins was a man of dull
presence, prosy of speech, in shape not unlike a water-barrel,
over-conscientious with testimonials, and suspected of jobbing museum
appointments. So the young men gathered round Hapley and applauded
him. It was a long struggle, vicious from the beginning, and growing
at last to pitiless antagonism. The successive turns of fortune, now
an advantage to one side and now to another--now Hapley tormented by
some success of Pawkins, and now Pawkins outshone by Hapley, belong
rather to the history of entomology than to this story.

[Footnote A: "Remarks on a Recent Revision of Microlepidoptera."
_Quart, Journ. Entomological Soc_. 1863.]

[Footnote B: "Rejoinder to certain Remarks," &c. _Ibid_. 1864.]

[Footnote C: "Further Remarks," &c. _Ibid_.]

But in 1891 Pawkins, whose health had