To William Bernhard Tegetmeier   1 January [1856]1

Down Bromley Kent

Jan 1st

My dear Sir

I write one line to thank you very sincerely for the card for the Philo-peristeron;2 which I will certainly attend if I possibly can: if I do not come, I will send the cranium per post;3 but I hope that I shall be able.— I am sorry to hear that you have been harassed in what seems a most just cause.

Your’s sincerely | C. Darwin

Very many & sincere thanks for keeping me in mind about Pigeons.

1
Dated by CD’s attendance at the annual show of the Philoperisteron Society (see n. 2, below).
2
Tegetmeier was secretary of the Philoperisteron Society, a club of gentlemen pigeon-fanciers that met in the Freemason’s Tavern, London. See Secord 1981, p. 172, and E. W. Richardson 1916, pp. 100–2. CD attended the meeting of 8 January (Cottage Gardener, 15 (1855–6): 301), and became a member of the society on 14 October 1856 (Secord 1981, p. 176).
3
Probably the head of the jungle fowl from India that CD had offered to lend Tegetmeier (see Correspondence vol. 5, letter to W. B. Tegetmeier, 6 December [1855]).

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-1813,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-1813