My dear Sir

I write in a hurry to catch to days post to beg a favour & to apologise. For the former first: I have been deeply interested by Alcippe, though I have not added much to your excellent description,¹ excepting perhaps on the homologies as compared with other cirripedes of the several parts.² I am almost driven mad by its generative system,³ & I write to ask whether you have any dry shells with Alcippe you c^d. send me, as I think I could get some considerable good from them: I am most anxious to examine many specimens taken at different times of year:⁴ I sh^d be most grateful if you could send me such by Post, allowing me to pay postage if heavy.

W^d. it be possible to employ for me any fishermen to get the shells now?? though specimens taken later than those you sent me, would perhaps be most useful to me: but any now w^d be of greatest interest to me. My surmises are too vague & too long to tell in this note, & perhaps all a blunder, but I am dreadfully perplexed.

Now for apologies,—can you forgive me when I tell you that I have cut up all the specimens you lent me? I fear I have been unreasonable, but I have trusted to the extreme kindness you have shown me in all your correspondence. Will you forgive me?

Yours very truly | In Haste | C. Darwin

Alcippe has no relation to my burrowing S. American little cirripede.⁵