Dear Sir,

My father directs me to thank you for the letter containing the details about the elephant case.¹ If the story is true it appears to my father to be far more probable that the fruit contains some alkaloid such as that in indian hemp.² This would equally well agree with the natives making a drink from it for similar cases are known e.g. the intoxicating (not alcoholic) liquor brewed from agaricus muscarius by certain steppe tribes (Tartars I believe)³

Dear Sir | Yours faithfully | Francis Darwin

Oct 29. 1877.