We send you our best thanks for your magnificent present of game. I have not tasted black-game for nearly half a century, when I killed some on my father-in-law's land in Staffordshire.
I hope that you are well and strong and do not give up all your time to shooting. Pray tell Mrs. Romanes, if you turn idle, I shall say it is her fault, and being an old man, shall scold her. But you have done too splendid work to turn idle, so I need not fear, and shall never have audaciously to scold Mrs. Romanes. But I am writing great rubbish. You refer to some Zoological station on your coast, and I now remember seeing something about it, and that more money was wanted for apparatus, therefore I send a cheque of 5l. 5s. just to show my goodwill.
Yours very sincerely,
Ch. Darwin.
We went to the Lakes for three weeks to Coniston, and the scenery gave me more pleasure than I thought my soul, or whatever remains of it, was capable of feeling. We saw Ruskin several times, and he was uncommonly pleasant.
To C. Darwin, Esq.
18 Cornwall Terrace: November 18, 1880.
Very many thanks for your kind assistance and expressions of approval. It was stupid of me to forget your article in 'Nature' about the geese. I now quite well remember reading it when it came out.
Focke's book is just the very thing I wanted, as it supplies such a complete history of the subject. If I do not hear from you again, I shall keep it for a few days to refer to when the proof which I have sent to press shall be returned with my historical sketch added.
I have now nearly finished my paper on the physiology of the locomotor system in Echinoderms. The most important result in it is the proof, both morphological and physiological, of a nervous plexus, external to everything, which in Echinus serves to co-ordinate spines, feet, and pedicellariæ in a wonderful manner. By the way, I remember once talking with you about the function of the latter, and thinking it mysterious. There is no doubt now that this function is to seize bits of seaweed, and hold them steady till the sucking feet have time to establish their adhesions, so assisting locomotion of animal when crawling about seaweed-covered rocks.