Ɛpsilon

To ?   7 December [1855–7?]1

Dec. 7th

Dear Sir

Will you be so kind as to take the trouble to inform me the address of Mr.—(?) Mason, who I believe is at Madeira,2 & whether he intends visiting the Azores. I want him to collect for me 2 or 3 trifling specimens3 & I do not know how to write to him.—

Dear Sir | Yours faithfully | Ch. Darwin

1
The years are conjectured from the reference to a Mr Mason; Nathaniel Haslope Mason collected plants in Madeira between 1855 and 1857 (R. Desmond 1994).
2
Nathaniel Haslope Mason; see n. 1, above.
3
The specimens may have been bats. In the letter to Charles Lyell, 5 [October 1860] (Correspondence vol. 8), CD wrote: ‘The subject of Bats is washed out of my head: I got Mr Mason to collect in Madeira & the species turned out to be European.... I failed to get the Azores species.’ CD was evidently also seeking bat specimens from the Azores in May 1855 (see Correspondence vol. 5, letter from T. C. Hunt, 2 July 1855). Bats are discussed in a section on the inhabitants of oceanic islands in the second chapter on geographical distribution (chapter 12) in Origin (pp. 394–5); Madeira and the Azores are not mentioned. However, see also Origin, pp. 104–7.

Manuscript Alterations and Comments

1.1 the address] after del ‘whether’
1.2 Madeira] after del ‘the’

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-13867A,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-13867A