My dear Ramsay

Will you have the kindness to glance at your 2 enclosed notes (which for the love of Heaven return to me carefully) & answer me one simple question, viz whether any plants or weeds grew in the interstices of the stones, & secondly whether trees were near so that leaves often or ever were blown into the court.—¹ I am putting together some notes on the action of worms & I find that naturalists differ much whether worms can live without obtaining dead vegetable matter from the surface,— indeed some deny that they get any nutriment out of the humus.— Your case of the little court interests me in other ways.—

I have not been lately in London, but during my two last visits I was so unlucky as to miss you in Jermyn St, & thus missed some pleasant talk²

Believe me | Yours very sincerely | Charles Darwin

I forget whether you have ever seen many worm castings in the court-yard, which I suppose is occasionally swept out.