To J. S. Henslow   25 September [1857]1

Down Bromley Kent

Sept. 25th—

My dear Henslow

I have this minute writing to my son at Rugby,2 to tell him of your magnificent present. The Copper will especially delight him; & I write now to give you our hearty thanks.3

I hope Hooker will come here this autumn & then he will bring the specimens; & if he does not come I must run over to Kew for a day.

Please remember sometime when at Ipswich to enquire whether water-fowl have ever been seen on the great tank of Mr. Ransome’s.4

Ever my dear Henslow | Your’s most truly | C. Darwin

1
The year is established by the reminder to Henslow to find out about birds on the tank at Ipswich, as previously mentioned in the letter to J. D. Hooker, 11 September [1857].
2
William Erasmus Darwin had returned to Rugby School on 20 August 1857 (Emma Darwin’s diary).
3
Henslow proposed to give CD some butterfly specimens (see letter to J. D. Hooker, [23 October 1857]). ‘Copper’ is short for the rare ‘copper-butterfly’, the common name of the genus Lycaena, so called from the metallic colouring of their wings (OED).

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-2329,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-2329