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From Frederick Du Cane Godman   21 December [1867]1

Park Hatch | Godalming.

Dear Sir

You will perhaps remember my writing to you some time ago saying that I was going to the Azores and asking you if you could direct my attention to any special objects of interest that were likely to be found there.2

Shortly after my return I wrote a short paper on the birds of those islands, in the “Ibis” but did not think it contained any thing of sufficient interest to be worth your notice, so did not send you a copy as I would otherwise have done.3

A short time ago I met Mr. Bates4 who told me that he thought you might like to see it & I therefore now send you a copy and I trust you will excuse the liberty—

Mr. Crotch has worked out a small collection of coleoptera which I also brought with me and has published a paper in the Zool: Proc: upon them. This I have no doubt you will have seen, but in case you have not, I also send a copy—5 Mr. W. C. Watson has already written on the flora6 and the land shells also are well worked out by Messrs. Morelet & Drouet7—and with all this material I think of writing a collected account of the fauna & flora of the Archipelago with a few remarks of my own which suggest themselves.8

Believe me | Yrs truly | F. Du Cane Godman

Decr. 21st.

1
The year is established by the reference to Crotch 1867 (see n. 5, below).
2
The letter has not been found. Godman went to the Azores in 1865 (Godman 1870).
3
Godman’s paper on the birds of the Azores appeared in Ibis in 1866 (Godman 1866); there is a lightly annotated copy in the Darwin Pamphlet Collection–CUL.
5
Godman refers to George Robert Crotch and Crotch 1867; CD’s annotated copy of the article is in his collection of unbound journals in the Darwin Library–CUL. For a bibliography of Crotch’s work, see Smart and Wager 1977.
6
Godman refers to papers on the flora of the Azores by Hewett Cottrell Watson (Watson 1843–7). CD had formerly corresponded with Watson about the flora of the Azores (see Correspondence vol. 5, letters from H. C. Watson, 20 November [1854] and 11 July [1855]).
7
Godman refers to Arthur Morelet and Henri Drouet. See Drouet 1858 and 1861, and Morelet 1860.
8
Godman’s Natural history of the Azores was published in 1870 (Godman 1870); there is a lightly annotated copy in the Darwin Library–CUL (see Marginalia 1: 330).

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-5737,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-5737