The next is remarkable. Captain V. H. Haggard, R.N., was a child of 2¾ years old at Hooghly, 1877. By much ingratiation I succeeded in getting a print of his whole hand, and another of three fingers. In 1913, when on special duty in H.M.S. 'President', he kindly gave me (not for the first time) a repeat, this time at the age of 38. The baby print bears enlargement beautifully, and I am sure my readers will be delighted with the comparison I am thus able to lay before them. [Illustration: CAPTAIN V. H. HAGGARD, R. N. 1877 aet. 2¾ r. 3 1877 (magnified) Repeat 1913 (magnified)] [Illustration: W. F. Courthope. r. 1 At Hooghly, 1877. r. 1 r. 2 Oct. 21, 1913. r. 2 At Hooghly, 1877.] One of the prints I value most, on personal grounds, is that of Sir Theodore Hope, at that time in the Legislative Council of India for Bombay. I grieve to say he has died since these words were written. He was one of my most honoured college friends in the old Haileybury days of 1853. Among the last prints that I took in India were two at Mussoorie, in the Punjab Himālayas, in Sept. 1877; one of my brother Colonel J. Herschel, R.E., and one of Dr. J. F. Duthie, of the Forest Department. They are both living still, and their repeats to-day are quite good. To return now to my letter of 1877. I was 'able to say that these marks do not change in the course of ten or fifteen years'. I might have said eighteen years, for my own marks reached back to 1859; but I was steering for safety. The conviction of the unchanging character of finger-patterns had, of course, grown on me only by degrees, as the evidence of time accumulated. Among my friends, from Nuddea days onwards, I often took second impressions, invariably drawing attention to their identity with the former ones. I never came upon any sign of change, bar accident. But such comparisons were generally limited to intervals of no more than two or three years, owing to the frequent changes of residence incidental to Indian service. As time went on it was chiefly the incessant evidence of my own ten fingers, and of my whole hand, which wrought in me the overwhelming conviction that the lines on the skin persisted indefinitely. [Illustration: Colonel J. Herschel, Sept. 22, 1877.] [Illustration: J. F. Duthie, 1877.] But besides my own evidence of eighteen years, I had that of my oldest college friend, William Waterfield, of almost as long. On March 31, 1877, he and Mr. (afterwards Sir Theodore) Hope and Mrs. Hope were my guests at Hooghly. I took all their impressions and my own on that day, noting on Waterfield's that we compared it with his earliest print of 1860, in Nuddea, seventeen years earlier. We found the agreement, of course, complete. Here are the facsimiles. [Illustration: T. C. Hope, Bo.C.S., at Hooghly, 1877.] [Illustration: W. Waterfield July 31, 1860, Nuddea. March 31, 1877, Hooghly.]