[24] The editors of the _Annals of Natural History_ append a note to the account I sent them of this new Polype, from which it appears that Dr. Gray found this very species and apparently in the same spot nearly thirty years ago. But the latest work of authority, VAN DER HOEVEN’S _Handbook of Zoology_, only enumerates the three species. Curious, if True. (EXTRACT FROM A LETTER FROM RICHARD WHITTINGHAM, ESQ.) You were formerly so much amused at my pride in my descent from that sister of Calvin’s, who married a Whittingham, Dean of Durham, that I doubt if you will be able to enter into the regard for my distinguished relation, that has led me to France, in order to examine registers and archives, which, I thought, might enable me to discover collateral descendants of the great reformer, with whom I might call cousins. I shall not tell you of my troubles and adventures in this research; you are not worthy to hear of them; but something so curious befell me one evening last August, that if I had not been perfectly certain I was wide awake, I might have taken it for a dream. For the purpose I have named it was necessary that I should make Tours my head-quarters for a time. I had traced descendants of the Calvin family out of Normandy into the centre of France; but I found it was necessary to have a kind of permission from the bishop of the diocese before I could see certain family papers, which had fallen into the possession of the Church; and, as I had several English friends at Tours, I awaited the answer to my request to Monseigneur de ----, at that town. I was ready to accept any invitation; but I received very few; and was sometimes a little at a loss what to do with my evenings. The _table d’hôte_ was at five o’clock; I did not wish to go to the expense of a private sitting-room, disliked the dinnery atmosphere of the _salle à manger_, could not play either at pool or billiards, and the aspect of my fellow guests was unprepossessing enough to make me unwilling to enter into any _tête-à-tête_ gamblings with them. So I usually rose from table early, and tried to make the most of the remaining light of the August evenings in walking briskly off to explore the surrounding country; the middle of the day was too hot for this purpose, and better employed in lounging on a bench in the Boulevards, lazily listening to the distant band, and noticing with equal laziness the faces and figures of the women who passed by.