Ɛpsilon

To John Edward Gray   [January 1851]1

My dear Gray

I will be here tomorrow morning at 10 oclock,2 & as I have very much to do will you kindly oblige me by having Spengler on Cirripedia3 (which you once showed me) ready for me.— Also I want to look at the rest of the sessile Cirripedia in the Collection,4 for praise be to Heaven, I have finished Balanus.5 And Lastly could I see Mr. Cocks’ collection?—6

Forgive this trouble | yours

1
Dated from CD’s reference to having ‘finished Balanus’ (see n. 5, below).
2
CD recorded the expenses of three trips to London during January and February 1851 (Classed account book (Down House MS)). It has not been possible to identify which trip was the one mentioned in the letter.
3
Spengler 1790. CD cited this work in Fossil Cirripedia (1854) and in Living Cirripedia (1854).
4
CD had requested permission from the trustees of the British Museum to borrow the Cirripedia collections (see Correspondence vol. 4, letter to J. E. Gray, 18 December 1847).
5
CD’s ‘Journal’ entry for 30 December 1850 reads: ‘finished Balanus & Pachylisma’ (see Correspondence vol. 4, Appendix I).
6
William Pennington Cocks, Cornish surgeon and collector. Cocks donated a small collection to the British Museum in 1849, which included specimens of Balanus tintinnabulum (see de Beer 1958, p. 93 n.). This species is extremely variable, which is perhaps why CD wished to examine Cocks’s collection (see Living Cirripedia (1854): 196).

Manuscript Alterations and Comments

1.2 on Cirripedia] interl
1.5 ?] above del full stop

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-1383,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-1383