120 



LIFE AT DOWN. ^TAT. 33-45. [1847. 



wish you had been there. On Sunday we had so pleasant an 

 excursion to Winchester with Falconer,* Colonel Sabine,f and 

 Dr. Robinson,^: and others. I never enjoyed a day more in 

 my life. I missed having a look at H. Watson.* I suppose 

 you heard that he met Forbes and told him he had a severe 

 article in the Press. I understood that Forbes explained to 

 him that he had no cause to complain, but as the article was 

 printed, he would not withdraw it, but offered it to Forbes 

 for him to append notes to it, which Forbes naturally de- 

 clined. . . . 



C. Darwin to J. D. Hooker. 



Down, April 7th [1847 ?]. 



My dear Hooker, — I should have written before now, 

 had I not been almost continually unwell, and at present I am 

 suffering from four boils and swellings, one of which hardly 

 allows me the use of my right arm, and has stopped all my 

 work, and damped all my spirits. I was much disappointed 

 at missing my trip to Kew, and the more so, as I had forgotten 

 you would be away all this month ; but I had no choice, and 

 was in bed nearly all Friday and Saturday. I congratulate 



* Hugh Falconer, born 1809, died 1865. Chiefly known as a palaeontol- 

 ogist, although employed as a botanist during his whole career in India, 

 where he was also a medical officer in H. E. I. C. Sei-vice ; he was super- 

 intendent of the Company's garden, first at Saharunpore, and then at Cal- 

 cutta. He was one of the first botanical explorers of Kashmir. Falconer's 

 discoveries of Miocene mammalian remains in the Sewalik Hills, were, at 

 the time, perhaps the greatest "finds" which had been made. His book 

 on the subject, ' Fauna Antiqua Sivalensis,' remained unfinished at the 

 time of his death. 



f The late Sir Edward Sabine, fonnerly President of the Royal Society, 

 and author of a long series of memoirs on Terrestrial Magnetism. 



X The late Dr. Thomas Romney Robinson, of the Armagh Observa- 

 tory. 



* The late Hewett Cottrell Watson, author of the ' Cybele Britannica,' 

 one of a most valuable series of works on the topography and geographical 

 distribution of the plants of the British Islands. 



