To W. B. Tegetmeier   9 April [1859]1

Down Bromley Kent

Ap. 9th

My dear Sir

I have received the pretty Fowls all safe, & enclose P.O. for the amount.—2 I shall now want no more. I have already got Chickens from the Game & Malay. The Spanish Cock is in high health & looks splendid.— Most sincerely do I thank you for all the great trouble you have taken. You have not only saved me much trouble & considerable expence, but you have assisted me in a better manner than I could have done myself—3

I shall go next month to press with an abstract of my general views on the origin of species, & it will make a volume of about 500 pages, & I shall have much pleasure in sending you a copy when it is published.—4 I shall give abstract of conclusions at which I have arrived on Bees cells.—5

Believe me with many thanks | Yours very sincerely | C. Darwin

1
Dated by CD’s reference to going ‘to press’ next month. CD recorded that he began reading proof-sheets of Origin in May 1859 (‘Journal’; Appendix II).
2
In CD’s Account book (Down House MS), there is an entry dated 6 April 1859 for a payment of 9s to Tegetmeier for poultry.
3
For CD’s intention to cross various breeds of fowl to see whether the ancestral colouring would appear, see letters to W. B. Tegetmeier, 16 November [1858], 27 [November 1858], and 24 December [1858].
4
This letter was tipped into Tegetmeier’s presentation copy of the first edition of Origin.
5
See Origin, pp. 224–35.

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-2450A,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-2450A