From J. D. Hooker   [30 April 1863]1

Royal Gardens Kew

Thursday

My dear Darwin

I am puzzled & distressed at the loss of your letter from Haast.2 I fancy that I do recollect it’s coming in that I sent you, & I thought I had on its receipt put it out addressed to you to go by Post with a whole heap of other letters on the night of my return from Jersey.3 My wife on the other hand saw no such letter when she stamped the batch. I had such a heap of letters to read through including 2 from Haast that I cannot speak positively of seeing the enclosure to you at all. My wife’s not having seen it is odd—& makes me think that I may have confounded Haast’s notice of its being enclosed, with my present idea that I saw itself   I have hunted every where in vain for it, & am at my wits end about it. That it did not go to Post is certain, for I sent all letters through my wife. It is also odd that I should not have thought of enclosing it in a letter of my own to you, as I intended to write to you the first thing after my return.

I shall continue my search, meanwhile I see no way out of my perplexity.

Ever yours | Dumbfoundered | J D Hooker

P.S. | I am now going to Town about the R.S. Elections4   have you any hints to give me.?

1
The date is established by the relationship between this letter, the letter from J. D. Hooker, 20 April 1863, and the letter to J. D. Hooker, 23 April [1863], and by the reference to the Royal Society elections (see n. 4, below).
2
Hooker sent CD a letter from Julius von Haast to Hooker dated 10 December 1862 (see enclosure to letter from J. D. Hooker, 20 April 1863). In the letter Haast mentioned enclosing a letter to CD (dated 9 December 1862) and asked Hooker to forward it; either the letter was not enclosed by Haast, or Hooker misplaced it. CD eventually received a copy of the letter from Haast (see letter from Julius von Haast, 5 March 1863 and n. 5). Haast’s letter of 9 December 1862 is printed in Correspondence vol. 10, and also in this volume, with his letter of 5 March 1863.
3
Hooker had returned on 17 April 1863 from a trip to Dorset and the Channel Islands of Guernsey and Jersey (see letter from J. D. Hooker, 20 April 1863 and n. 1).
4
The council of the Royal Society of London, of which Hooker was a member, drew up the shortlist of candidates for election to the fellowship at their meeting of 30 April 1863 (Royal Society, Council minutes, 30 April 1863).

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-4133,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-4133