Ɛpsilon

To John Gould   [February 1838]

[36 Great Marlborough Street]

My dear Sir

I have just seen my publisher.1 we have fixed to have fifty plates of birds, so will you at once take into consideration which are most worthy being done.—2

Will you also oblige me by the favour of seeing Bayfield,3 & see whether he will undertake the birds (which are chiefly small ones) at something less than 5d a piece, as it is rather more than our estimate calculated upon.—

If he would also undertake my quadrupeds I should be very glad.— There will be about 28 plates, chiefly small animals.—4 See if you cannot make for me some kind of agreement to take the whole at something under 5d.—

It will be rendering me a very great assistance if you can effect this

Yours most truly | Chas Darwin

1
Smith, Elder & Co., publishers of the Zoology and the geological volumes arising from the Beagle voyage.
2
Birds was begun by Gould and completed by George Robert Gray. The plates are introduced with a note (p. i): ‘The accompanying illustrations, which are fifty in number, were taken from sketches made by Mr. Gould himself, and executed in stone by Mrs. Gould’.
3
The plates were coloured by Bayfield, who also coloured the plates for Gould 1832–7 (see p. viii, where he is praised and thanked for his work).
4
The four numbers of Mammalia by George Robert Waterhouse have thirty-two unsigned coloured lithograph plates. According to Smith, Elder & Co.’s accounts these were undertaken by Dickes, possibly William Dickes (see letter to A. Y. Spearman, 22 September 1838, n. 1).

Manuscript Alterations and Comments

1.2 at once] interl
2.1 see] after del ‘en’
2.2 a] over illeg
3.1 undertake] before del ‘the’

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-401,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-401