Ɛpsilon

From C. W. Thomson   22 June 1878

Bonsyde | Linlithgow, N.B.

June 22d | 1878

My dear Sir,

The Professorship of Nat: Hist: in the University of Aberdeen is to be vacant at the close of the current Summer Session— Dr. McIntosh of Murthly is a candidate—and I think his careful work on the Annelids and Nemerteans gives him a good claim.1 He has been my colleague for some years past as Examiner in Zoology in Edin University and he has won our entire confidence in that capacity being at once well-informed and judicious—

Pray do not take the trouble of answering this note, but if you see your way to giving him a help I think his appoint would be an advantage.

Dr. Hoeck has I understand nearly finished the “Challenger” Pycnogonids and I am still reserving the Cirripeds for him— I wish to see his Pycnogonid work before I send them to him.2 One of the Nat: Hist: memoirs is finished— Mr. Davidson on the Brachiopoda— I only wish a larger departmt had been in his hands.3

Believe me with great respect, yours very truly | C. Wyville Thomson

1
William Carmichael McIntosh had published two volumes of his Ray Society monograph on British marine annelids (McIntosh 1873–1922); the first volume dealt with nemertine worms (ribbon worms; now included in phylum Nemertea). The position of regius professor of natural history at Aberdeen was vacated by James Nicol in 1878, and awarded to James Cossar Ewart in 1879. Thomson was regius professor of natural history at the University of Edinburgh.
2
Paulus Peronius Cato Hoek’s report on specimens of Pycnogonida (sea spiders) collected by HMS Challenger between 1873 and 1876 was published in 1881 (Hoek 1881); his report on Cirripedia came out in 1884 (Hoek 1884).
3
Thomas Davidson’s report on Brachiopoda was received on 28 September 1878 and published in 1881 (Davidson 1881).

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-11562,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-11562