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From John Edward Gray   21 November 1867

Brit. Mus

21 Nov 1867

My Dear Darwin

Thanks for sending the skins & skeletons of the Domestic & other animals   they shall be well cared for1

I do not know if your take in the Proceedings Zool Soc   I have been making a zoological arrangement of Sponges & would send you a copy of the paper if you do not take in the Proceedings   hithertoo the arrangement of them has been entirely empirical—2

I will take care that the Boxes shall be returned to you & will you direct Mr G Snow to call for them any day next week3

You were quite right not to pay the carriage

With kindest Regards & Congratulations at your Book being so nearly out as to allow you to send the specimens4

Ever yours faithfully | J. E Gray

The Boxes have arrived but unfortunately the man left without our giving him the direction to call & they were left in the Hall & the Porter too idle to let us know the man was there

The Boxes shall be Ready for him on Monday or any day after

1
CD provided the British Museum with specimens of ducks, pigeons, and Gallus bankiva, ancestor of the domestic fowl; these were exhibited at the Natural History Museum in 1910, and their relevance to CD’s work on Variation was noted in the guide to the exhibition (British Museum (Natural History) 1910, especially pp. 273–4).
2
CD subscribed to the Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London. Gray’s paper (J. E. Gray 1867) is a review of the classification of sponges with proposals for new taxonomic divisions; there is a copy in the collection of unbound journals, Darwin Library–CUL.
3
George Snow, the coal dealer at Down, operated a carrier service between the village and London on Thursdays (Post Office directory of the six home counties 1866).
4
Gray refers to Variation. See also n. 1, above.

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-5692,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-5692