302 WORK ON ' MAN.' [1870. 



You have been a good Christian to give a list of your 

 additions, for I want much to read them, and I should hardly 

 have had time just at present to have gone through all your 

 articles. Of course I shall immediately read those that are 

 new or greatly altered, and I will endeavour to be as honest 

 as can reasonably be expected. Your book looks remarkably 

 well got up. 



Believe me, my dear Wallace, to remain, 



Yours very cordially, 



Ch. Darwin. 



[Here follow one or two letters indicating the progress of 

 the ' Descent of Man ; ' the woodcuts referred to were being 

 prepared for that work •] 



C. Darwin to A. Gunther. 



March 23, [1S70?] 

 Dear Gunther, — As I do not know Mr. Ford's address, 

 will you hand him this note, which is written solely to express 

 my unbounded admiration of the woodcuts. I fairly gloat 

 over them. The only evil is that they will make all the other 

 woodcuts look very poor ! They are all excellent, and for 

 the feathers I declare I think it the most wonderful woodcut 

 I ever saw ; I can not help touching it to make sure that it is 

 smooth. How I wish to see the two other, and even more 

 important, ones of the feathers, and the four [of] reptiles, &c. 

 Once again accept my very sincere thanks for all your kind- 

 ness. I am greatly indebted to Mr. Ford. Engravings have 

 always hitherto been my greatest misery, and now they are a 



real pleasure to me. 



Yours very sincerely, 



Ch. Darwin. 



P. S. — I thought I should have been in press by this time, 

 but my subject has branched off into sub-branches, which 



* Dr. Gunther, Keeper of Zoology in the British Museum. 



