My dear M^r Darwin.

I have been staying from home for a fortnight my wife having been ill so that I only received your letter yesterday:² I am very sorry that partially through my stupid forgetfulness & partially through the political excitement we have been passing through that I overlooked writing to you to tell you not to send back the Blue book but to keep it.³ If you have not sent it ⁠⟨⁠off pray⁠⟩⁠ do not do so. It is much more useful to you than to me. You altogether misjudge my very small position as a student   It is I assure you a most modest one. The only subject upon which I have worked out new lines is in asiatic ethnology a dry and repulsive field of inquiry.⁴ I need not say therefore that to be mentioned in a footnote to one of your books I feel to be a distinction.⁵ I have tried to find the man who mentioned the Sandwich islands to me but have failed to do so. He was a stranger to me & I met him at the Literary & Philosophical Society.⁶ In the ⁠⟨⁠crude⁠⟩⁠ paper which I enclose which was written some time ago & only recently printed on page 221. is a reference to some remarks of M^r Coulter on the Indians of California on this subject which if you have not seen may interest you.⁷ In regard to the extinction of the St Kilda islanders to which I refer in the same paper, my friend D^r Morgan has written an elaborate paper.⁸ D^r Angus Smith who was there last year tells me that a remedy has been partially tried with success which consists in sending the women when enceinte to the Hebrides where they remain till the children are 6 months old

If I can get his paper on the subject I will send it you.⁹ I copy the following from an article on Madeira in the New Quarterly Magazine. It may interest you if you have not heard of the fact.¹⁰ “The rock pigeon is not uncommon on the sea cliffs   a more curious bird is a large wood pigeon, indigenous to Madeira larger than the British species fat & good to eat—in fact better in this respect than any of the game birds of the islands. This pigeon, in strict accordance with the most recently expounded Darwinian principles, has developed a singularly long central toe, more than an inch longer than the corresponding member in the common ring dove a living memorial one may presume, of the time when the island was one huge forest. The rock pigeon of Madeira, which needs not to clasp the branches of trees has toes of only a reasonable length”. Have you seen also some articles now coming out in the Art Journal which are illustrated & working out the notion that the typical English countenance & expression has changed very much since the Tudor period.¹¹ I think they would interest you.

I have again to ask you to excuse my crudities and to express the hope that you cant make too much use of me in any way down here   I remain | Yours very respectfully | Henry H Howorth