To Katharine Murray Lyell   26 January [1856]

My dear M^rs. Lyell

I shall be very glad to be of any sort of use to you in regard to the Beetles. But first let me thank you for your kind note, & offer of specimens to my children: my Boys are all butterfly-hunters, & all young & ardent lepidopterists despise from the bottom of their souls coleopterists.—¹

The simplest plan for your end & for the good of entomology, I should think, would be to offer the collection to D^r. J. E. Gray for British Museum, on condition that a perfect set was made out for you. If the collection was at all valuable I should think he would be very glad to have this done.—² Whether any third set would be worth making out, would depend on value of collection: I do not suppose that you expect the insects to be named for that would be a most serious labour.— If you do not approve of this scheme, I sh^d. think it very likely that M^r. Waterhouse would think it worth his while to set a series for you, retaining duplicates for himself, but I say this only on a venture.³ You might trust M^r Waterhouse implicitly, which I fear, as rumour goes, is more than can be said for all entomologists.—

I presume, if you thought of either scheme, Sir Charles Lyell could easily see the gentlemen & arrange it; but if not, I could do so when next I come to town, which however will not be for 3 or 4 weeks.—

With respect to giving your children a taste for Natural History, I will venture one remark, viz that giving them specimens, in my opinion, would tend to destroy such taste. Youngsters must be themselves collectors to acquire a taste; & if I had a collection of English Lepidoptera, I would be systematically most miserly & not give my Boys half-a-dozen butterflies in the year. Your eldest Boy⁴ has the brow of an observer, if there be the least truth in phrenology.—

We are all better, but we have been of late, a poor household.—

Pray give my kind remembrances to Colonel Lyell⁵ & believe me, my dear M^rs. Lyell | Yours truly obliged | Charles Darwin