To Robert Fitch   [23 January 1850]

My dear Sir

I write merely now to say I have received all your specimens & kind note.— Many of the valves are quite new.— Yours is incomparably the finest collection in the world of fossil Secondary Cirripedia.— Two of your specimens, I feel grief & shame in saying are come broken slightly but can be perfectly repaired: a third is rather more injured but fortunately it was one embedded upside down & in that condition it is absolutely & utterly useless; it has now come off the Chalk & I hope can be repaired & will certainly even mutilated be far more useful that heretofore.—

I will report hereafter in full to you

Yours | C. Darwin