toads, last August a twelvemonth; I opened the grave last October and they were well and lively. Have you any queer fish? Write to me soon and let me have all the news.'

'Come, now,' said Hunter to Dr Clarke, 'I positively must have that preparation.' 'No, John Hunter, you positively shall not.' 'You will not give it to me, then?' 'No.' 'Will you sell it?' 'No.' 'Well then, take care I don't meet you with it in some dark lane at night, for if I do, I'll murder you to get it.'

One time Hunter was arguing to be allowed to perform a post-mortem examination; with his back to the fire, and his hands in his pockets, with his feet spread apart as if to balance his anxiety, he made an earnest figure. Then, sir,' he said at last, turning to the master of the house, 'you will not permit the examination to be made?' 'It is impossible.' Then, sir,' were the final words of Hunter, 'I heartily hope that yourself and all your family, nay, all your friends, may die of the same disease, and that no one may be able to afford any assistance.'

In Sir Joshua Reynolds' painting of John Hunter - that lifelike picture in which the rapt sitter seems able to break forth from the canvas at any moment part of the background is formed by the feet of a skeleton of abnormal size. This was the skeleton of Charles O'Brien, the famous Irish giant. When the huge creature began to sicken, John Hunter cast longing eyes upon him. Hunter was a tireless worker, and for hours would stand motionless dissecting an insect in true Jan Swammerdam fashion, but after all it would be some satisfaction to trace nerves of magnitude, and to examine titanic muscles from broad origin to vast insertion. The giant learnt that Hunter had designs upon his carcass, and to escape the anatomist's scalpel he gave orders that when he died he should be placed in a leaden coffin and sunk into the But the men whom the undertaker hired to watch the eight-foot corpse, watched also the opportunity to refresh their lesser but living bodies with liquor. Hunter's servant

sea.