From Ellen Hutchins to Dawson Turner   4 Sep 1809

Your letter my dear Sir reached me about a month ago, & should not have been so long unanswered had I been as well able as I was inclined to write to you. It found me just beginning to recover a very severe attack of my bilious complaint which weakened me so much that until within the last week I have not been able to make any exertion, & during that time drawing and preserving Fucus Wigghii, asparagoides, some beautiful Confervae & rivulariae has so completely occupied me that I really have not had a moment to spare. A few days before my illness I had the pleasure of meeting Mr Dillwyn and Mr Woods here. The former has I supposed reached home before this time. He seemed much pleased with the marine productions of this Bay both plants & shells. I rather think he dislikes Ireland much after England. The comparison between English manners & ours must be very disadvantageous to us, & I fear our Landscape scenery would not appear better contrasted with Wales. I was very happy to share my collection of sea plants with Mr Dillwyn & he seemed highly delighted.

It gives me great pleasure to hear what you have been so good as to say of the probability of an English work on lichens. I am quite impatient to begin. I did attempt them before with Withering but soon found that I could not proceed without better assistance. I shall be very glad to send you whatever I can get. I shall send some specimens in a parcel that I intend to make up for you in a few days. I have more specimens ready to send you and a few drawings. In winter I shall have many drawings to send you as I shall then copy some that I have now. This summer I have been both too ill and too idle to draw. I have not done anything but read, walk and talk with a brother who has been at school in England and who I have not seen for some years until he came to spend this vacation from [Trinity] College with us. I have been so happy with him when free from pain that I hardly regret idling. I shall copy drawings of six or seven beautiful Rivulariae for you. Next season when I get a better glass I shall do sketches more highly magnified than those I have at present. I hope you will find the natural size drawings pretty accurate. I beg you will not feel any regret at employing my time in doing anything you with for. I live an extremely retired life, next to complete seclusion, & in such a situation it is rather doing me kindness to excite exertion. I have been drawing all our Confervae, as many of Dillwyn’s plates seem to me very inaccurate: in many of them the manner of growth of the complete species is ill represented: general re[text missing] is not I think sufficient to please in [text missing] minute, & that require close inspection. His magnified parts are more accurate. Of those of our Fuci that I am able to judge of Dasphyllus, kaliformis, & clavellosa only seem ill represented. I have pretty good drawings of each of those species, would you like to get copies? I think too that the natural size of F Griffithsii is not very good. I hope you will at some future time publish the Rivulariae: they are of all things what I am most passionately fond of. That beautiful species I sent you as Ulva verticillata I have very lately met with again. You shall have many specimens, though it is a rarity, and a drawing when I have time. I have got specimens and drawings of a Fucus of which I once sent you the only fragment I had seen, very like laciniatus, but certainly a distinct species, its fruit & substance prove it so. It is somewhat different too in colour & mode of growth.—

I shall put in this letter a sketch of the fruit of Fucus edudis, perhaps you may not have seen it. The tubercules seem placed in the substance of the leaf between the two coats, & fibres spread from them. The seeds separate between the coats, & then have somewhat the appearance of scattered seeds. How they escape I cannot see. The surface of the frond seems covered with very minute perforations, but I could not be sure that seeds get through them.

Southey’s Remains of H K White I have never seen. I feel very sensibly your kindness in wishing to amuse me by sending it. I shall be very happy to have & value it as another proof of your kindness added to the many I have already had. I cannot tell you how much obliged I am for your letter nor how much gratification it has given me. May not Lord Valentia’s travels to be very interesting & yet disappoint expectation. Too much is generally I believe expected. You shall very soon have a parcel from me. I have found some new Confervae since I sent you the last. I am sorry you did not find fruit in F phyllitis. I thought I saw clusters of long pear shaped seeds near the end of the frond. I have been called again & again to breakfast & have written in such a hurry I hardly know what I have said. I can only be sure that I always feel your truly obliged & faithful

E Hutchins

Ballylickey, September 4^th 1809.

Dante delights me horrible as he is though I only read the English translation —

Your Rivularia vermiculata is I am inclined to think not the same as my plant. I am anxiously collecting shells & hope to have a tolerably good collection of natives for you, probably as many species as any one shore produces. We have many very beautiful small shells. Mr Dillwyn liked them very much. I have got Fucus pedunculatus but almost entirely destitute of those beautiful green tufts that add so much to its beauty.