As it was necessary for me to go through with my examination at once, and as the days for promotion here were already engaged two months in advance, I decided to pass it at Erlangen. That I might not go alone, and also for the pleasure of their company, I persuaded Schimper and Michahelles to do the same. Braun wanted to be of the party, but afterward decided to wait awhile. We made our request to the Faculty in a long Latin letter (because, you know, among savants it is the thing to speak and write the language you know least), requesting permission to pass our examination in writing, and to go to Erlangen only for the colloquium and promotion. They granted our request on condition of our promise (jurisjurandi loco polliciti sumus) to answer the questions propounded without help from any one and without consulting books. Among other things I had to develop a natural system of zoology, to show the relation between human history and natural history, to determine the true basis and limits of the philosophy of nature, etc. As an inaugural dissertation, I presented some general and novel considerations on the formation of the skeleton throughout the animal kingdom, from the infusoria, mollusks, and insects to the vertebrates, properly so called. The examiners were sufficiently satisfied with my answers to give me my degree the 23rd or 24th of April, without waiting for the colloquium and promotion, writing to me that they were satisfied with my examination, and therefore forwarded my diploma without regard to the oral examination. . .The Dean of the Faculty, in inclosing it to me, added that he hoped before long to see me professor, and no less the ornament of my university in that position than I had hitherto been as student. I must try not to disappoint him. . . A letter from his brother contains a few lines in reference to this. "Last evening, dear Louis, your two diplomas reached me. I congratulate you with all my heart on your success. I am going to send to grandpapa the one destined for him, and I see in advance all his pleasure, though it would be greater if the word medicine stood for that of philosophy." The first part of the work on the Brazilian Fishes was now completed, and he had the pleasure of sending it to his parents as his own forerunner. After joining a scientific meeting to be held at Heidelberg, in September, he was to pass a month at home before returning to Munich for the completion of his medical studies. TO HIS PARENTS. MUNICH, July 4, 1829.