This letter is about the 200 or so drawings of fishes that ARW made while on the Rio Negro and its tributaries in the 1850s. ARW explains that the specimens were lost on the voyage home but that as the drawings are to scale and have descriptions and accompanying notes they might be useful to a student or to catalogue. He suggests they could be reproduced by photography and process-plate. ARW states he is reluctant to throw them away.

Sends his fish drawings [of the Rio Negro] and four rough notebooks.

Asks for names of the genera of snakes, lizards and Batrachia which are peculiar to the Palaearctic region; and also the families or genera of batrachians peculiar to the Nearctic region.

Asks for correct numbers to be inserted into passage on Palaearctic genera - printers are waiting for the sheet. [passage missing].

Thanks for list of genera of reptiles and amphibians of the Palaearctic region; requires similar list for the Nearctic region & number of peculiar Nearctic genera of freshwater fishes, names not needed.

Thanks for list of general peculiar to the Nearctic region; there is no need to trouble Dr Günther now re. the fishes.