Ɛpsilon

From P. L. Sclater   2 June 1877

44, Elvaston Place. | Queens Gate. S.W.

June 2nd. 1877

My dear Mr Darwin

I believe Flower has spoken to you about the attack that has been made upon Wyville-Thomson which is explained in the enclosed memorandum and that you have expressed your willingness to join us in repudiating any share in it. The enclosed was drawn up by Flower Huxley and myself and is agreed to by Hooker. I hope you will be able to sign it. Please return it to me in the enclosed envelope.1

I was glad to hear from Sir Victor Brooke such a good report of you.2 When you come to London do not forget to come and see | Your’s most sincerely | P. L Sclater

1
The enclosure was a memorial supporting Charles Wyville Thomson. He had been criticised by Peter Martin Duncan for assigning some of the specimens from the Challenger expedition to foreign zoologists. The memorial was published in Annals and Magazine of Natural History 4th ser. 20 (1877): 79–80; the debate over Thomson’s decision had arisen in ibid. 4th ser. 19 (1877): 429–30, 506–9. The memorial defending Thomson’s choice of ‘competent naturalists without regard to their nationality’ was signed by CD, Sclater, Joseph Dalton Hooker, Thomas Henry Huxley, William Henry Flower and seven others; it was reprinted in Nature, 14 June 1877, pp. 117–19.
2
Victor Brooke had visited CD at Down on 26 May (see letter to W. H. Flower, 19 May [1877]).

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-10981,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-10981