Ɛpsilon

To John Lubbock   [September 1854]1

[Down]

Thursday

Dear Lubbock

I do not know whether you care about Beetles, but for the chance I send this in a Bottle, which, I never remember having seen, though it is excessively rash to speak from a 26 year old remembrance. Whenever we meet you can tell me whether you know it.—

I have been so much interested by Westwood, that I have ordered a copy.2 I feel like an old war-horse at the sound of the trumpet, when I read about the capturing of rare beetles— is not this a magnanimous simile for a decayed entomologist. It really almost makes me long to begin collecting again.

Adios.— “Floreat Entomologia”, to which toast at Cambridge, I have drunk many a glass of wine,3 so again “Floreat Entomologia”. N.B. I have not now been drinking any glasses full of wine.

Your’s | C. D.—

1
Dated on the basis of CD’s reference to Westwood 1839–40 (see n. 2, below).
2
Westwood 1839–40. CD’s annotated copy is in the Darwin Library–CUL. He recorded having read it on 25 September 1854 (Correspondence vol. 4, Appendix IV, 128: 10).
3
See CD’s correspondence with his cousin William Darwin Fox during their time as undergraduates in Cambridge (Correspondence vol. 1).

Manuscript Alterations and Comments

1.3 26] ‘6’ over ‘5’

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-1585,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-1585