CHARLES DARWIN TO W.D. FOX. Down, November 13th [1858].
...W., my son, is now at Christ's College, in the rooms above yours. My old Gyp, Impey, was astounded to hear that he was my son, and very simply asked, "Why, has he been long married?" What pleasant hours those were when I used to come and drink coffee with you daily! I am reminded of old days by my third boy having just begun collecting beetles, and he caught the other day Brachinus crepitans, of immortal Whittlesea Mere memory. My blood boiled with old ardour when he caught a Licinus—a prize unknown to me...
CHARLES DARWIN TO JOHN LUBBOCK. Thursday [before 1857].
Dear Lubbock,
I do not know whether you care about beetles, but for the chance I send this in a bottle, which I never remember having seen; though it is excessively rash to speak from a twenty-five-year old remembrance. Whenever we meet you can tell me whether you know it...
I feel like an old war-horse at the sound of the trumpet, when I read about the capturing of rare beetles—is not this a magnanimous simile for a decayed entomologist?—It really almost makes me long to begin collecting again. Adios.
"Floreat Entomologia"!—to which toast at Cambridge I have drunk many a glass of wine. So again, "Floreat Entomologia." N.B. I have NOT now been drinking any glasses full of wine.
Yours, C.D.
CHARLES DARWIN TO HERBERT SPENCER. Down, November 25th [1858].
Dear Sir,