VII 



LETTERS FROM CHARLES DARWIN 

 TO ROLAND TRIMEN (1863-1871) 



MY friend, Mr. Roland Trimen, Hon. M.A. 

 (Oxon.), F.R.S., was at the Cape when Mr. Francis 

 Darwin's great work was in course of preparation. 

 On this account his fine series of letters has 

 remained unpublished up to the present date. 

 Now, with his kind consent and that of Mr. Francis 

 Darwin, it is a great pleasure to be able to include 

 in this memorial volume a single complete set 

 of letters, moderate in number, but in every way 

 most characteristic of the writer. 



Mr. Trimen has very kindly written the fol- 

 lowing deeply interesting account of his first 

 meeting with Darwin exactly half a century ago. 

 As we read the story, the intense antagonisms at 

 first aroused by the Origin seem again to rise into 

 life and activity : 



' It was in the Insect Room of the Zoological Depart- 

 ment of the British Museum that I had my first glimpse 

 of the illustrious Darwin. Towards the close of 1859, 

 after my return from the Cape, I spent much time in the 



