LONDON AND CAMBRIDGE. ALTAT. 33. [1842 



and animals, dogs, cats, &c., &c., very valuable. Don't for- 

 get, if your half-bred African cat should die that I should be 

 very much obliged for its carcase sent up in a little hamper 

 for the skeleton ; it, or any cross-bred pigeons, fowl, duck, 

 &c., &c., will be more acceptable than the finest haunch of 

 venison, or the finest turtle." 



Later in the year (September) he writes to Fox about his 

 health, and also with reference to his plan of moving into the 

 country : 



" I have steadily been gaining ground, and really believe 

 now I shall some day be quite strong. I write daily for a 

 couple of hours on my Coral volume, and take a little walk or 

 ride every day. I grow very tired in the evenings, and am 

 not able to go out at that time, or hardly to receive my near- 

 est relations ; but my life ceases to be burdensome now that 

 I can do something. We are taking steps to leave London, 

 and live about twenty miles from it on some railway."] 



1842. 



[The record of work includes his volume on ' Coral 

 Reefs,'* the manuscript of which was at last sent to the 

 printers in January of this year, and the last proof corrected, 

 in May. He thus writes of the work in his diary : 



" I commenced this work three years and seven months 

 ago. Out of this period about twenty months (besides work 

 during Beagle s voyage) has been spent on it, and besides it, 

 I have only compiled the Bird part of Zoology ; Appendix, 

 to Journal, paper on Boulders, and corrected papers on Glen 

 Roy and earthquakes, reading on species, and rest all lost by 

 illness." 



In May and June he was at Shrewsbury and Maer, whence 

 he went on to make the little tour in Wales, of which he spoke 

 in his ' Recollections,' and of which the results were published 

 as " Notes on the effects produced by the ancient glaciers of 



* A notice of the Coral Reef work appeared in the Geograph. Soc. Jour- 

 nal, xii., p. 115. 



