Dear M^r. Darwin,

Thank you so much for your kind appreciative letter. It has given me very great pleasure for I never expected that you would even read such a simple little book as mine, much less read it through & take the trouble to comment upon it.¹ I have been thinking that I ought to have said something of Murchison & now you suggest it I will work it in to the next edition—² M^rs. Lyell also had already lamented to me the absence of botany in the 19^th. century & I am very glad to know of a book to which I can apply for information.³ I tried to say what I thought was true about Natural Selection but it was impossible to do it justice (even for beginners) in a few pages & without details.⁴

Would you take the trouble on p 322 line 17 to substitute the words “an incandescent gas” for “an ordinary gas flame” It is not true as it stands but one of those stupid mistakes one discovers afterwards—⁵

I hope you are feeling well & able to do a fair share of work   I often miss not hearing how you are & what you are doing, as I did in past times—⁶

Please remember me very kindly to M^rs. Darwin & with many many thanks for your kind letter | Believe me | Yours very sincerely | Arabella B Buckley

PS. Have you seen Monteiro’s “Angola & the River Congo”   I made his acquaintance at the British Museum & found him a very intelligent observer. He says he has now had those copper-tailed birds in confinement two or three years & the copper still appears on the tail & is easily washed off—⁷