Ɛpsilon

To James Hunt   28 May [1861]

Down. | Bromley. | Kent. S.E.

May 28th.

My dear Sir

I hope that you will be so good as to present my sincere thanks to the President & Council of the Ethnological Society for the distinguished honour which they have conferred on me in electing me one of their Honorary Fellows.1 I am also very much obliged for the present of the Vol. I. of the Transactions.2

I beg leave to remain | Dear Sir | Your obliged & obed. servant | Charles Darwin

P.S. | Permit me to thank you personally for the very kind expression towards me in your letter.3

Postmark: MY 28 61

1
Hunt was an honorary secretary of the Ethnological Society of London, whose stated purpose was ‘the study of the human race in all its varieties, and in all the phases of its history and progress’ (Transactions of the Ethnological Society of London n.s. 2 (1863): iii).
2
The first volume of the new series of the Transactions of the Ethnological Society of London was published in 1861. CD’s copy has not been located in the Darwin library.
3
Hunt’s letter has not been found. The official announcement of the award, dated 26 May 1861, is in DAR 230. It states that CD was elected an honorary fellow of the society ‘in consideration of the services … rendered to the Science of Ethnology’.

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-3163,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-3163