My dear Sir

I write to thank you cordially for your very kind note & specimens. I have had just one look at them & they are incomparably the best specimens which I have as yet seen from any Secondary rock. But I grieve to say that one specimen has arrived broken; it is a large flat valve (scutum) or lower lateral valve. thank Heaven it is only one of the single valves, but a very fine one: it has come off the chalk & about one half is in very small fragments, which I hope to succeed in gumming together: a second has a piece of the chalk broken off, but the valve is not in the least injured. I have seldom been more vexed than on seeing this— I fear you will be always sorry that you sent them me.— I think they w^d come back safer within a wooden box.— I can see by a glance that the specimen is a Scalpellum, allied to the S. (Xiphidium of Sowerby & Dixon) quadratum of the Bognor beds, but in some respects more allied to a recent new species which I have called S. rutilum.— I believe it is the Pollicipes maximus of J. Sowerby.—¹

Should you object to my having your specimen drawn by M^r J. Sowerby, together with several others?— Will you kindly inform me?. I intend going to London on or about the 20^th (but my plans are uncertain on account of my wifes expected Confinement)² & w^d. take it up to London with me, if you grant your permission,—get them drawn, if possible, whilst I remain in London; bring them home & send them to you.—

I will not touch the chalk, & promise take every possible care of your specimens, which I look at as of extreme value; & I trust that there will be no accidents— I have had none as yet, except in the present unfortunate case, though I have had a great many recent & some fossil sent me.

I really cannot tell you how grieved & sorry I have been that your kindness sh^d thus have been ill rewarded—

Yours sincerely | obliged | C. Darwin