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Darwin Correspondence Project

To Richard Kippist   12 May [1868?]1

Down. | Bromley. | Kent. S.E.

May 12

My dear Sir

I will return on Thursday morning the 4 vols. of the Ibis; & will you be so good as to have ready for Carrier “Jerdon’s Birds of India”, & if this does not consist of four vols. please add Bells British Reptiles or if this not in Library vols. 5 & 6 of the Ibis—2

Yours very faithfully | Ch. Darwin

Might you not send me 5 or 6 vols?3

Footnotes

The year is conjectured from the relationship between this letter and the letter to Osbert Salvin, 1 June 1868, where CD said that he had already returned Ibis vol. 2.
Ibis was the journal of the British Ornithologists’ Union. CD also refers to Jerdon 1862–4 and T. Bell 1849, both of which are cited in Descent. George Snow ran a carrier service between London and Down every Thursday (Post Office directory of the six home counties 1866, 1870).
Borrowers from the library of the Linnean Society were officially limited to two volumes at a time; in 1866, CD had requested a more generous allowance (see Correspondence vol. 14, letters to George Bentham, [July–September 1866], 27 September [1866], and 1 October 1866 and n. 1, and letter from George Bentham, 25 September 1866).

Bibliography

Bell, Thomas. 1849. A history of British reptiles. 2d edition. London: J. van Voorst.

Correspondence: The correspondence of Charles Darwin. Edited by Frederick Burkhardt et al. 29 vols to date. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1985–.

Jerdon, Thomas Claverhill. 1862–4. The birds of India; being a natural history of all the birds known to inhabit continental India, with descriptions of the species, genera, families, tribes, and orders, and a brief notice of such families as are not found in India, making it a manual of ornithology specially adapted for India. 2 vols. in 3. Calcutta: the author.

Post Office directory of the six home counties: Post Office directory of the six home counties, viz., Essex, Herts, Kent, Middlesex, Surrey and Sussex. London: W. Kelly & Co. 1845–78.

Summary

Returns volumes of the Ibis.

Requests T. C. Jerdon’s Birds of India

and Thomas Bell’s British reptiles

as well as vols. 5 & 6 of Ibis.

Letter details

Letter no.
DCP-LETT-6169A
From
Charles Robert Darwin
To
Richard Kippist
Sent from
Down
Source of text
Linnean Society of London (Fellows Files No. 18)
Physical description
ALS 1p

Please cite as

Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 6169A,” accessed on 19 April 2024, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-6169A.xml

Also published in The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, vol. 16

letter