To J. S. Burdon Sanderson   29 March 1873

16 Montique St1 | Portman Square

March 29. 1873

My dear Dr. Sanderson

Pray excuse me for troubling you but I am in a perplexity. My son tells me that Dr. Klein said that he would have the great kindness to send me a copy of your recent book on Histology and Physiology.2 I do not know whether my son has blundered, but he understood that you were going to despatch it. On Thursday all books, parcels, &c received during the previous week at Down were brought up here by our weekly carrier, but your book was not there. I should be sorry to lose the book, and very much more sorry not to thank Dr. Klein. Will you be so kind as to give me any information on the subject. If it has been despatched, and should be lost (which is very unlikely) I will get a fresh copy and thank Dr. Klein just as if I had received it, so do not tell him.— Pray excuse me and let me have one line.— It is just possible that my son may have altogether misunderstood Dr. Klein, and that makes it the more impossible for me to write to him

Yours very sincerely | Ch. Darwin

I much enjoyed my talk with you and you did me a real good service about the Tumbler pigeon. I have thanked Dr. Brenton and returned the Gazette to him.3

Copy

1
The copyist was in error; CD stayed at 16 Montague Square, London (see ‘Journal’ (Appendix II)).
2
Francis Darwin studied histology under Edward Emanuel Klein at the Brown Animal Sanatory Institution (F. Darwin 1920, pp. 67–8); Burdon Sanderson was professorial superintendent of the institution, and had edited Klein’s Handbook for the physiological laboratory (Klein et al. 1873). There is a copy of Klein et al. 1873 in the Darwin Library–Down.
3
CD had borrowed a copy of the Indian Medical Gazette belonging to Thomas Lauder Brunton; it contained an article about tumbling behaviour in pigeons (W. J. Moore 1873; see letter to T. L. Brunton, 26 March 1873 and nn. 1 and 3).

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-8829A,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-8829A