IX 



CORRESPONDENCE 



To few private individuals could it have fallen to 

 have carried on a correspondence at once so varied 

 and extensive as was the case with my father. Not 

 only from all parts of the country did he receive 

 communications, but from people of all sorts and 

 conditions. To every letter he replied by return 

 of post, except on Saturdays, when he rarely, if 

 ever, posted a letter, unless assured that it would 

 be delivered the same day ; for he had a con- 

 scientious objection to the Sunday post, and under 

 no circumstances would he receive or despatch a 

 letter on that day. 



Every letter that he received upon any point 

 bearing on natural history he scrupulously pre- 

 served. Of these, many of the most interesting 

 have been already made public, either in Mr. 

 Morris's books and pamphlets or in the news- 

 papers ; it will not, therefore, be necessary here to 

 allude to many of them ; indeed, out of so varied 

 a collection it would be impossible to do so. Such 

 as are here given must be regarded as typical of 

 others. Some seven or eight years before his 

 death he took it into his head to try and ascertain 



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