Ɛpsilon

To L. A. Errera   8 August [1878]

Leith Hill Place | Dorking

Aug 8th.

Dear Sir

I regret extremely that you should have had the trouble of going to Down for nothing.— I left home before the Post arrived yesterday; otherwise I shd. have written before.—1

I hope that your interesting researches on cross-fertilisation progress favourably2 & I remain | Dear Sir | Yours faithfully | Ch. Darwin

Postmark: AU 8 78

1
CD had left Down on 7 August 1878 and was away until 22 August (CD’s ‘Journal’ (Appendix II)). The cover of the letter indicates that it was sent to London, but forwarded to Belgium.
2
Errera and Gustave Gevaert had published a summary of Cross and self fertilisation. Errera, who was a doctoral candidate at the Free University of Brussels, had told CD that he wanted to study the fertilisation of inconspicuous flowers (see Correspondence vol. 25, letter from L. A. Errera, 10 October 1877).

Manuscript Alterations and Comments

0.1 Leith … Dorking] above del ‘Down, | Beckenham, Kent. | Railway Station | Orpington. S. E. R.’

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-11644,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-11644