Merriam’s letter and the enclosures have not been found, but Merriam probably sent CD two newspaper clippings: a description of the parade and ball held by the Mystick Krewe of Comus to celebrate Mardi Gras in New Orleans, containing a copy of the poem ‘The missing links to Darwin’s origin of species’ (Daily Picayune, 26 February 1873), and an article from the New Orleans Times, 26 February 1873, containing a heated denouncement of Darwinian theory and of CD personally.

The New Orleans Times article was full of inaccuracies; for example, it identified John Lubbock and Charles Lyell as opponents of CD and claimed that CD’s theory was the same as that of Jean Baptiste Lamarck. For more on Comus, the theme of the parade, and the anti-Darwinian article, see Tinker 1953, pp. 325–31.