To F. B. Goodacre   11 February [1873]¹

Dear Sir

Your proposition seems an excellent one. If, for instance, a room in the B. Museum were set apart for mounted specs. of all the dom. animals & Birds it would be vy valuable & I believe vy popular.² But the older naturalists wd. despise such a collection. Even in the Zoolog. Garden. varieties, however remarkable, are excluded.

With respect to Plants, the collection if universal, wd be so gigantic that hardly anyone wd ever examine it; & they could be presered ony in dry state. At Kew there is a collection of the seeds of vars. but solely under an economical point of view. It wd. be impossible to exhibit with vy many of the most valuable cultivated plants & dom. animals, the primitive types, as these are unknown, in most cases, as I firmly believe, for having been so much modified. I think “Nature” (published by MacMillan Bedford sq, Covent Garden) wd. be much the best periodical for your letter; though of course I do not know whether it wd. be admitted— You are quite at liberty to state that such a collection, as you propose, wd. be in my opinion, very valuable & interesting;³ but I shd. not wish for other parts of this hasty letter to be quoted.— I am forced to write hastily, as my correspondence is so large.—

Pray forgive me, & accept my best thanks for your interesting & kind letter, & believe me | Dear sir | Yours vy faithfully | Ch. Darwin