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To E. W. V. Harcourt   1 June [1856]

Down Farnborough Kent

June 1st

Dear Sir

I really hardly know how to thank you sufficiently for your very great kindness in taking so much trouble in answering all my questions so very fully.1 Almost every word of your letter is of real value to me. I thank you, also, for the copy of your paper, which I am glad to have separate, though I have it in the Annals & have read it in your work on Madeira.—2 The information which you have given me, is very much fuller than I had dared to hope for.— The subject interests me under several points of view, namely in regard to the direct colonisation of islands by Birds,3 & indirectly with regard to the possibility of seeds being brought over adhering to the feet or base of beak, or in the crops of birds;4 & indeed under several other points of view not worth mentioning.

Pray again permit me to thank you for your kindness, & for your very obliging expressions towards myself, which gratify me much. And I beg to remain | Yours very truly obliged | Charles Darwin

Endorsement: ‘1856.’

2
Harcourt sent a marked-up offprint of his paper on birds of Madeira, which was published in the Annals and Magazine of Natural History (Harcourt 1855). The offprint is in DAR 196.4: 1. Harcourt also published a list of birds in his Sketch of Madeira (Harcourt 1851). CD read this in June 1855 (CD’s reading notebooks, Correspondence vol. 4, Appendix IV, 128: 12).
3
CD cited Harcourt for information on European and African birds blown to Madeira in Origin, p. 391.
4
See also Correspondence vol. 6, letter to T. C. Eyton, 31 August [1856].

Manuscript Alterations and Comments

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Please cite as “DCP-LETT-1885F,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-1885F