To William Henry Flower   13 April [1863]1

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

April 13th

My dear Sir

I have been so long familiar with your name, that I trust you will excuse me addressing you, as if we were acquainted.

Several years ago I presented to the College the skull of the Niata Ox.2 This day I received a letter from M. Quatrefages, asking me, if I possibly could get for him a photograph of this skull, or a cast for the Museum.—3

Would it be possible to make so huge a cast & would it not be very expensive? Will you have the great kindness to assist M. Quatrefages & greatly oblige me.—

Do you know any photographer & could you get a photograph (I presume side & front view would be necessary) made.4 If you will take this trouble I shd. be very much obliged. Perhaps, also, you can give me some information about a cast: if permission were granted & it could be made, I think I had better give M. Quatrefages some idea of cost. He could judge best after seeing Photographs.— I hope that you will forgive me thus troubling you. I would have come to London; but my health is so indifferent that this is no slight fatigue to me.—

My dear Sir | Yours faithfully | Ch. Darwin.

1
The year is established by the relationship between this letter and the letter from W. H. Flower, 15 April 1863.
2
CD presented a niata skull, collected on the Beagle voyage, to the Royal College of Surgeons in January 1840 (see letter from Armand de Quatrefages, [28 March –] 11 April 1863 and nn. 7 and 8). Flower was curator of the Hunterian Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons (DNB).
3
See letter from Armand de Quatrefages, [28 March –] 11 April 1863. Quatrefages was professor of the natural history of man at the Muséum d’Histoire Naturelle in Paris (DSB). See also letter to Armand de Quatrefages, 14 May [1863].
4
CD sent photographs of the niata skull to Quatrefages in May (see letter to Armand de Quatrefages, 14 May [1863], and letter from Armand de Quatrefages, 19 May [1863]).

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-4090,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-4090