Abstract
II. IN the July number of the Deutsche Rundschau, Prof. Haeckel gives a further account of his stay in Ceylon, a stay which his ardent enthusiasm and unwearied industry cannot fail to have made fruitful in results to the scientific world. The present series of papers being intended for magazine readers in general, is, as might be expected, altogether popular in tone. The Professor's researches and discoveries in support of the theory of Evolution, are only implied, not described in detail. His letter is written from the point of view of an intelligent and cultivated traveller, fully alive to the novelty and beauty of the scenes in which he found himself, and of a naturalist anxious to make the most of his very limited time to become familiar with the fauna and flora of that lovely island which Buddhist poets gracefully apostrophise as “a pearl on the brow of India.” The energetic Professor was evidently a subject of much wonder to the languid Anglo-Indians and lazy Singhalese, as, in his white linen suit and “Sola” hat, he braved the mid-day sun and even occasionally the tropical rains, besides setting at nought the bites of countless leeches and the stings of mosquitoes and scorpions, and prosecuted his researches from morning till night. It is, however, to this constant bodily exercise and to his invariably temperate diet, that Prof. Haeckel ascribes his perfect health while on the island; but it is doubtful whether, as the body became enervated by the climate, such habits could be long sustained.
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Prof. Haeckel in Ceylon 1 . Nature 26, 273–275 (1882). https://doi.org/10.1038/026273a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/026273a0