My dear William

I hope that you will thank M^r. Langstaff very sincerely for me for his capital observations.² It is invaluable having an anatomist who will observe expression; & he must have a rare facility for observation, for every one else has found it excessively difficult to remember & observe.— Will you ask him (& tell me) what was the occasion during which the two adults were observed with their “depressores anguli oris” contracted.— You say that the children were observed during vaccination.—

Ask M^r. L. to observe if he has the chance, any child who is trying not to cry, whether the eyebrows do not sometimes become oblique, with the transverse wrinkles extending only across the middle of the forehead:³ I now feel sure of the fact; yet I sh^d like to have so good a witness.— I presume M^r. L. would not object to my quoting him, if, as I believe, I sh^d. wish to do so.

I have asked some London Surgeons to observe about the Platysma; & one of them rather stupidly has inserted my question in one of the medical Journals.—⁴ Paget tells me he has never had an opportunity of observing since I asked him, though plenty previously.—⁵

Bowman, also, I see is in earnest & will observe how far Sir C. Bell is accurate about the conjunctiva of the eye becoming gorged with blood, if the eyelids of a violently screaming infant or young child are forcibly opened, & thus relieved of the protective pressure of the orbicularis.—⁶ Did I tell you about the Elephant?⁷ You know that I believe that there is a relation between the contraction of the orbicularis & the secretion of tears (but Bowman seems rather puzzled what the relation is); & we know, according to Bell, what the relation is between screaming & the contraction of the orbicularis. Now the elephant is almost the sole quadruped which weeps—so I asked at Zoolog. Gardens, whether the elephants closed their eyelids when trumpeting violently: they did not know, but soon made both trumpet, & by Jove they conspicuously each time contracted firmly the orbicularis at each violent expiration.—

Don’t forget to observe about suppressed yawn & the depressores,—that was⁸ ⁠⟨⁠third of page excised⁠⟩⁠