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tev. Dr. Goodenough to J. E. Smith, Paris. 
Dear Sir, Ealing, Sept. 25, 1786. 
Your letter dated Paris, Sept. 8th, has just reached 
me, and given me prodigious pleasure, not only 
from the very favourable expressions towards me 
with which it abounds, but from my having such 
an actual proof that you are alive and well. To 
speak in modern political terms, with respect to 
the regard which you are pleased to testify towards 
me, “ the reciprocity is not all on one side.” 
I had a very pleasant excursion with Curtis to 
Maldon, then along the Essex coast to Mersey 
Island, and thence to Harwich. At this last place 
I was laid up with a terrible boil, which threw me 
quite into a fever for a week, and imbittered the 
latter part of my time. However, before this un- 
fortunate circumstance, we worked well from seven 
in the morning till eleven at night, with only the 
interruptions of. breakfast and dinner, and those, 
short repasts. I had no conception we should have 
found so many insects. But we happened to find 
a pond overrun with Zypha major and Festuca 
Jluitans. It was incredible what a number of curious 
things we found; Sphex fissipes, and your little 
Cantharis miniata. But as if fortune designed us 
to be niggardly, she would not let us take more 
than two of each; so there was one for each of us, 
and not one for a friend. I looked over every stalk 
and blade for two days together, five or six hours at 
a time, to find more, but in vain! A great variety 
