To John Gould 29 Sept 1853

My dear Sir,

I feel very much obliged by the trouble you have taken in attending to my request. I fear I am sometimes more importunate than I ought to be in my endeavouring to procure objects for such purposes as the enclosed Programme will tend to explain. As I did not hear from you I determined to postpone my Wasp & Bee lecture for another occasion. The Birds arrived too late for me to unpack them yesterday in the midst of the multitudinous arrangements I had on hand - and today I was obliged to pass 6 1/2 hours in the Justice Room at Hadleigh & have only just opened the box (after post hours). Though I can seldom afford to indulge myself in purchases in Natural history beyond my own natural line of Botany, I shall be tempted to keep Mr Ledbetter's Birds, & will send him a cheque for them as soon as I can recover his account from amidst the confusion in which the events yesterday have thrown my papers & the whole house. We were fortunate in our day, and every thing went off as we could wish - barring a cold & horseness which prevented my exerting my lungs as I ought. We had a long booth to contain 300 tea drinkers - a small one to contain a model extemporized by my daughters - perhaps as complete a thing of the sort as you ever saw, with its fountain, its flower garden, & cricket field & Marquee &c. Then my Marquee Museum with such specimens as I could command, all properly mounted on stands with several pictures & diagrams in illustration. You would have smiled to see some of my shifts to make things work well - old cotton reels, pasteboard & black varnish on my [illeg.]. Your Bower Bird plates hung up in a conspicuous situation - with half a dozen of your little favourites (their skins, but not stuffed) disposed under a glass case (of home manufacture) & so arranged as living as to display their colours - backed by the views of your Humming Bird house & your portrait as given in the Illustrated London News. Such a medley of things good, & things trumpery (to suit all tastes) you never saw collected under a Marquee! One advantage of such an exhibition is, that it tends to promote natural history among the gentry & clergy, several of whom were present. Next Tuesday I am going to Ld. Henniker's, who has got up a Village Hat Show on the same plan & I am to take him some of my objects to assist at a Marquee Museum - & I hope & trust the plan will spread - it seems to give so much pleasure. Objects you would reject as superfluous or useless I should probably work into something - such is my hobby. Should I be alive & well next July, when we have our next show, I hope to rig out another Museum of this sort, and shall not scruple to ask all Naturalist friends to lend me a helping hand with whatever odds & ends they can spare. Anything that admits of a tale being appended to it is most serviceable - but almost anything assists. [illeg.], I exhibited a common Millipede (as you will see) by the side of a fine large exotic centipede, because one of our Labourers had asked me a fortnight before what was the meaning of the word, he having met with it in a book (he is one of the few that can read, of the older men) & was puzzled to know whether it was a [illeg.], vegetable, or animal. Though hundreds [illeg.] in the Marquee, nothing was injured. It has taken me nearly a month's hard work to put the materials in train - & I think you would have been surprised at the amount of decorations in laurel wreaths, flowers & [illeg.] prepared by the spontaneous efforts of my family. We all went through as hard a days work as can well be done, & one or two of us were tolerably knocked up, not to say ill. I don't mean myself - for though I was thoroughly fagged with my cold in the head and body & did as much (at least) as any, I bear such matters as well as most. However all went off really well & all dispersed peacefully & happily. Tomorrow I have to put away things & make up accounts & so write at once that I may not longer delay my thanks to you. Among the objects I take to Thornham will be your plates of the Bower Birds which always afford great pleasure. If I could persuade you to come to one of our shows, I think you would be pleased to see what interest some of our villagers take in inspecting the wonders of a Marquee Museum - though you could not fail to smile at its contents when you remembered what sort of figure they would cut beside any real Museum.

Believe me

very truly yrs

J. S. Henslow