148 CAMBRIDGE. ^TAT. 19-22. [1828. 



C. Darwin to J. M. Herbert. 



Saturday Evening 



[September 14, 1828].* 



My dear old Cherbury, 



I am about to fulfil my promise of writing to you, but 

 I am sorry to add there is a very selfish motive at the bottom. 

 I am going to ask you a great favour, and you cannot imagine 

 how much you will oblige me by procuring some more speci- 

 mens of some insects which I dare say I can describe. In 

 the first place, I must inform you that I have taken some of 

 the rarest of the British Insects, and their being found near 

 Barmouth, is quite unknown to the Entomological world : I 

 think I shall write and inform some of the crack entomol- 

 ogists. 



But now for business. Several more specimens, if you can 

 procure them without much trouble, of the following insects: — 

 The violet-black coloured beetle, found on Craig Storm,t 

 under stones, also a large smooth black one very like it ; a 

 bluish metallic-coloured dung-beetle, which is very common 

 on the hill-sides; also, if you would be so very kind as to 

 cross the ferry, and you will find a great number under the 

 stones on the waste land of a long, smooth, jet-black beetle 

 (a great many of these) ; also, in the same situation, a very 

 small pinkish insect, with black spots, with a curved thorax 

 projecting beyond the head; also, upon the marshy land over 

 the ferry, near the sea, under old sea-weed, stones, &c., you 

 will find a small yellowish transparent beetle, with two or four 

 blackish marks on the back. Under these stones there are 

 two sorts, one much darker than the other ; the lighter-col- 

 oured is that which I want. These last two insects are ex- 

 cessively rare, and you will really extremely oblige me by taking 

 all this trouble pretty soon. Remember me most kindly to 



* The postmark being Derby seems to show that the letter was written 

 from his cousin, W. D. Fox's house, Osmaston, near Derby. 



f The top of the hill immediately behind Barmouth was called Craig- 

 Storm, a hybrid Cambro-English word. 



