To P. L. Sclater   4 November [1870]1

Down. | Beckenham | Kent. S.E.

Nov. 4th

My dear Mr Sclater

I am going to beg a favour of you which will cost you little trouble proportionally to the great service it will be to me.— I have a most unfortunate weakness, though I strive against it, to copy proper names incorrectly. In my present book on sexual difference I have to give a host of names of Birds.2 Will you run your eye over the enclosed list & see that names are spelt rightly?— I enclose envelope addressed to save you as much trouble as possible.— You can return the list without a word; except indeed, if you will add that I may send another list for another one or two chapters.—3 I have checked all names occurring in books which I possess (except one or two just now mislaid) but I have not Jerdon or the Ibis from which many names are taken.4

I hope & think this will not cause you much trouble.

Yours very sincerely | Ch. Darwin

1
The year is established by the relationship between this letter and the letter to P. L. Sclater, 5 December 1870.
2
CD refers to Descent; the chapters on birds are in Descent 2: 36–238. CD thanked Sclater for his help in Descent 2: 238 n. 59.
3
Sclater also checked the two chapters on mammals (Descent 2: 239–315).
4
CD refers to Thomas Claverhill Jerdon’s Birds of India (Jerdon 1862–4), and to Ibis, the journal of the British Ornithologists’ Union.

Manuscript Alterations and Comments

0.1 Beckenham] before del ‘Bromley.’
1.6 list] interl
1.7 send] interl

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-7356,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-7356