Dear Sir

I am very much obliged for your note & the specimens.² I have kept 2 of the Geese, & will the first day I send to the Station return 2.— I enclose P.O for 16^s. with 1^s for carriage of returned parcel.³

You say in your note that the Egyptian goose throws the water, like a Duck, out of the sides of the beak.⁴ Now it would be especially useful to me to know positively, whether this goose can graze or tear off herbage like the domestic goose.— Will you ask your Father,⁵ if he does not know, whether he could turn one of these geese out on a plot where there is fresh grass, & see whether it can use its beak well in biting off or plucking herbage.—

I shall be glad also to hear whether the spur-winged Goose of Africa ever sifts the water, which does not seem probable from what you say about its beak.—⁶

Dear Sir | Yours faithfully | Ch. Darwin