“Why, his account of the _amphioxus_, of course! You can’t mean that his family didn’t know about it--that _you_ don’t know about it? I came across it by the merest accident myself, in a letter of vindication that he wrote in 1830 to an old scientific paper; but I understood there were journals--early journals; there must be references to it somewhere in the ‘twenties. He must have been at least ten or twelve years ahead of Yarrell; and he saw the whole significance of it, too--he saw where it led to. As I understand it, he actually anticipated in his pamphlet Saint Hilaire’s theory of the universal type, and supported the hypothesis by describing the notochord of the _amphioxus_ as a cartilaginous vertebral column. The specialists of the day jeered at him, of course, as the specialists in Goethe’s time jeered at the plant-metamorphosis. As far as I can make out, the anatomists and zoologists were down on Dr. Anson to a man; that was why his cowardly publishers went back on their bargain. But the pamphlet must be here somewhere--he writes as though, in his first disappointment, he had destroyed the whole edition; but surely there must be at least one copy left?” His scientific jargon was as bewildering as his slang; and there were even moments in his discourse when Miss Anson ceased to distinguish between them; but the suspense with which he continued to gaze on her acted as a challenge to her scattered thoughts. “The _amphioxus_,” she murmured, half-rising. “It’s an animal, isn’t it--a fish? Yes, I think I remember.” She sank back with the inward look of one who retraces some lost line of association.