To John Lubbock   14 [July 1855]1

Down.

14th

Dear Lubbock.

To prevent you taking more trouble in vain, I write to say that I got yesterday some more & enough specimens of Helix pomatia for my Snailery.—2

Very many & hearty thanks for your splendid Lepidoptera Books, which my Boys study with great interest.3 Please do not forget sometime the number of acres in Larch wood, & when planted. We have now collected in it about 115 species of plants.4

Yours most truly | C. Darwin

P.S. | I forget whether you know Mr. Leonard Horner. He comes here on Monday with his family & if you would like to meet him, I much hope that you will dine with us on Tuesday next at 7 oclock. The Carters (who are staying at Colonel Cators House) will be with us, & the Innes’.—5 If so inclined, I hope that you will come.—

C. D

1
The date is confirmed by an entry in Emma Darwin’s diary. Leonard and Anne Susan Horner and Susan and Joanna arrived on 16 July; ‘Mr H. Carter & Alice’ were included at the dinner party on the 17th, a Tuesday. The Carters were staying with John Farnaby Cator of Hayes, Kent. John Innes was perpetual curate of Down.
2
CD had previously asked Lubbock for some freshwater snails to put in his vivarium (see letter to John Lubbock, 24 April [1855]).
3
See letter to G. R. Waterhouse, 8 July [1855], in which CD sought advice on systematic entomology books for William and George Darwin.
4
CD described his plan to collect all the species in a circumscribed area in his letter to J. D. Hooker, 5 June [1855].
5
See n. 1, above.

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-1831,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-1831