Ɛpsilon

To Leonard Jenyns   [9 May 1842]

12 Upper Gower

Monday Morning

Dear Jenyns

I am sorry about the mistake of the Fish-numbers—1 I have been to Smith & Elder & they apologise for their mistake & will send them off immediately— I hope you will not have to write again— I have sent off per Waggon, (Carr Paid) the fish-skins & all the bottles carefully packed up, directed to Mr Crouch Phil. Soc. Cambridge.—2

You must feel lightened of no inconsiderable load, having finished the Fish— I was looking at the last number yesterday— what a mass of matter there is in it!— The conviction I feel that your Part is real good work, I assure you, is a very great satisfaction to me often-times, when I doubt whether I ought to have applied to the Government for money. I wish I could get Bell to complete his Part,3 the Publishers will then try & push the sale at home & abroad.—

Farewell. | Yours most truly | C. Darwin.

I leave London in about a week or 10 days—my wife & children have already left.—

I have just finished correcting the last Page of Index of my small volume on Coral Reefs,4 wh. rejoices the inward cores of my heart

1
The fourth and final number of Fish had been published in April.
2
John Crouch, curator of the Library of the Cambridge Philosophical Society (A. R. Hall 1969, p. 24). The specimens are now in the Cambridge University Museum of Zoology.
3
Reptiles, the final part of Zoology, was not completed until the following year (1843).
4
CD’s Account Book (Down House MS) entry for 3 May 1842 reads: ‘Hall for making index 9s’. He completed the proofs of Coral reefs on 6 May and left for Maer on 18 May (‘Journal’; Correspondence vol. 2, Appendix II).

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-629,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-629