300 ^ETAT. 30. [1839. 



1839, ne was at Maer and Shrewsbury. Again, from 

 August 23 to October 2 he was away from London at 

 Maer, Shrewsbury, and at Birmingham for the meeting of 

 the British Association. 



The entry under August 1839 ' ls ' "During my visit to 

 Maer, read a little, was much unwell and scandalously idle. 

 I have derived this much good, that nothing is so intolerable 

 as idleness." 



At the end of 1839 his eldest child was born, and it was 

 then that he began his observations ultimately published in 

 the 'Expression of the Emotions.' His book on this subject, 

 and the short paper published in ' Mind,' * show how closely 

 he observed his child. He seems to have been surprised 

 at his own feeling for a young baby, for he wrote to Fox 

 (July 1840) : " He \i.e. the baby] is so charming that I cannot 

 pretend to any modesty. I defy anybody to flatter us on 

 our baby, for I defy any one to say anything in its praise of 

 which we are not fully conscious. ... I had not the smallest 

 conception there was so much in a five-month baby. You 

 will perceive by this that I have a fine degree of paternal 

 fervour." 



During these years he worked intermittently at ' Coral 

 Reefs,' being constantly interrupted by ill health. Thus he 

 speaks of " recommencing " the subject in February 1839, and 

 again in the October of the same year, and once more in 

 July 1841, "after more than thirteen months' interval." His 

 other scientific work consisted of a contribution to the 

 Geological Society,! on the boulders and "till" of South 

 America, as well as a few other minor papers on geological 

 subjects. He also worked busily at the ornithological part of 

 the Zoology of the Beagle, i.e. the notice of the habits and 

 ranges of the birds which were described by Gould. 



* July 1877- 



t ' Geol. Soc. Proc.' iii. 1842, and * Geol. Soc. Trans.' vi. 



