April 8 [186]81
Sir
I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of yesterday asking for gold fish for Mr McLellan.2 With this I beg to enclose a reply that by direction of the Council I have prepared for him which if it meets with your approval will you please forward.3
I also enclose a pamphlet sent to me by Mr A. Riley of Rosedale Gipps Land4 which he [so] particularly desires you should see. I shall be obliged if you will kindly return it when read.
I have the honor to be
Sir
Your most Obedt Servt
Geo Sprigg
Scy
To Dr F von Mueller F.R.S.
&c &c &c
editorial addition.
Letter not found; the member of Parliament William McLellan?
Letter not found. Sprigg had been instructed to write 'offering the fish but stating that in the opinion of the Council it would be a pity to put goldfish in any of the reservoirs as they are known to be so destructive to the ova of other fish' (Council minutes, meeting of 7 April 1868). M asked for goldfish again, a month later, this time 'for New Zealand'; see Council minutes, 5 May 1868, and G. Sprigg to M, 7 May 1868 (in this edition as 68-05-07a).
Vic. The pamphlet was a copy of Riley (1832) and was sent by the author's son, A. R. Riley, who had written a foreword to it; no evidence of a printed edition with A. R. Riley's preface has been found. Dr Thomas Black had evidently seen a copy and been sufficiently impressed with the publication that he had the Acclimatisation Society ask Riley on 26 February 1868 to send them a copy (Unit 5, p. 598, VPRS 2225 outward letterpress copy books, Acclimatisation Society of Victoria, Public Record Office, Victoria). On 14 February 1868, Sprigg wrote thanking Riley for the pamphlet saying: 'It is now in the hands of the President Dr Black and subsequently Dr Mueller shall have it' (Unit 5, p. 584, VPRS 2225 outward letterpress copy books, Acclimatisation Society of Victoria, Public Record Office, Victoria).
Please cite as “FVM-68-04-08b,” in Correspondence of Ferdinand von Mueller, edited by R.W. Home, Thomas A. Darragh, A.M. Lucas, Sara Maroske, D.M. Sinkora†, J.H. Voigt† and Monika Wells accessed on