1843-44 
DARWIN AND WOODCUTS 
209 
Down, Farnborough, Kent. 
‘ My dear Owen, — ... I am 77 iuch pleased 
at your praise of my Coral volume, and am very 
glad you recommend it to the notice of voyagers. 
It would undoubtedly be far more suggestive to 
any one who will really attend to the subject, but 
for the generality, perhaps, the abstract in my 
journal would be the most [useful], ... I have 
lately read with very great interest all the parts 
which I could follow in your Report on Arche- 
types, &c. Y ou may remember that I suggested 
explanations to the woodcuts. I am not a quarter 
satisfied yet. You may with perfect justice say 
you do not write for tyros ; but if ever you take 
compassion (and there is no other claim) on 
Ignoramuses such as myself, you will in every 
Woodcut give the name to every letter or number 
m your woodcuts, even if repeated 500 times, 
for just that many times will it make your work 
intelligible to the ignorant. 
‘ Believe me, 
‘ Yours very sincerely, 
‘ C. Darwin.’ 
It was in this month also that a box arrived 
fconi New Zealand containing a large assortment 
the bones of the dinornis, of which he had 
already described the ‘shaft of a femur’ in 1837. 
‘On January 19,’ the diary records, ‘ we 
'Opened the long-expected box from New Zealand, 
VOL. I. p 
