1840.J HEALTH. 271 



logical 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 Zool- 

 ogy of the Beagle^ i. e. the notice of the habits and ranges of 

 the birds which were described by Gould.] 



C. Darwin to C. Lydl. 



Wednesday morning [February 1840]. 



My dear Lyell, 



Many thanks for your kind note. I will send for the 



Scotsmajt. Dr. Holland thinks he has found out what is the 



matter with me, and now hopes he shall be able to set me 



going again. Is it not mortifying, it is now nine weeks since 



I have done a whole day's work, and not more than four half 



days. But I won't grumble any more, though it is hard work 



to prevent doing so. Since receiving your note I have read 



over my chapter on Coral, and find I am prepared to stand by 



almost everything ; it is much more cautiously and accurately 



written than I thought. I had set my heart upon having my 



volume completed before your new edition, but not, you may 



believe me, for you to notice anything new in it (for there is 



very little besides details), but you are the one man in Europe 



whose opinion of the general truth of a toughish argument I 



should be always most anxious to hear. My MS. is in such 



confusion, otherwise I am sure you should most willingly, if it 



had been worth your while, have looked at any part you 



choose. 



***** 



[In a letter to Fox (January 1841) he shows that his 

 *' Species work" was still occupying his mind : — 



" If you attend at all to Natural History I send you this 

 P.S. as a memento, that I continue to collect all kinds of facts 

 about * Varieties and Species,' for my some-day work to be so 

 entitled ; the smallest contributions thankfully accepted ; de- 

 scriptions of offspring of all crosses between all domestic birds 



* 'Geol. Soc. Proc.' iii. 1842, and ' Geol. Soc. Trans.* vi. 



