Admires RP’s volume [Introduction to zoology, pt 1 (1846)]; he has condensed a great deal of accurate information. CD hopes some good naturalists will spring up as a result.
Admires RP’s volume [Introduction to zoology, pt 1 (1846)]; he has condensed a great deal of accurate information. CD hopes some good naturalists will spring up as a result.
He has returned William Thompson’s MSS and, he believes, all his specimens of Cirripedia.
Has found a half dozen [cirripede] specimens belonging to William Thompson and a few MS notes. Asks for instructions for sending them to RP.
Discusses the transport of seeds by birds. William Thompson received letters on this subject from CD in 1848 and from Edward Forbes in 1850. Encloses copies of Thompson’s reply to Forbes’s letter of 23 Feb 1850 and of Thompson’s notes (1848–51) on transport of seeds by birds.
Asks RP’s help in procuring a specimen of a real Irish rabbit, L. veomicule [Lepus vermicula]?.
The [Irish] rabbits arrived safely. "They shall be skeletonized." CD now has rabbits from Shetland, Madeira and Ireland; hopes to receive one from Jamaica.
Sends an account of the destruction of wild rabbits by rats introduced from a wrecked ship.
Thanks RP for communicating the "Rat v. Rabbit case".