My dear Sir,

I took occasion last week in a lecture on Orchids to notice your interesting researches on the agency of Insects in distributing the Pollen of that class of plants, and as it was the first time that your views had been publickly noticed at Oxford, since the famous discussion in which the Bishop of Oxford & Huxley played so prominent a part,¹ took advantage of the opportunity to set the Academical public ⁠⟨⁠righ⁠⟩⁠t as to the general tendency of your former work, and its bearings on Theology.

As I have no intention of publishing my Lecture which indeed contained little or nothing which has not been much better explained by yourself and other original investigators of the subject of orchids, I have got the few concluding remarks transcribed, under the impression, that it might be satisfactory to you to see the light in which your enquiries were represented in one of the great centres of clerical influence.—²

The account you give of your own researches is so clear and compleat, that the only point upon which I am somewhat puzzled, is as to Insects visiting the same species of orchis from which they had abstracted the Pollen. Are they attracted to one Species more than to others? for if not, the fertilisation of the flower must be a matter of accident; and although the same remark may apply to other plants, which have their pollen distributed by the same agency, yet the rarity of certain orchises renders the difficulty greater in their case than in most others.—

Owing to my having been absent in Italy all the winter and part of the spring, it is long since I have met you at the Philosophical Club,³ or elsewhere in London, but I hope I may augur favorably of your health from the activity with which you have pushed your researches

Believe me | ever | dear Sir | y^rs faithfully | C Daubeny