
          at your anxiety to return home especially 
after your terrible disappointment 
in not finding Mrs Torrey in Europe. I 
shall encourage my boys to travel before 
they are blessed with a family if sure
they are to be so blessed & I should 
like of all things (if all goes well) that 
when they are old enough they should 
visit the United States & know more 
especially that I have a friend there 
to whose care I can so confidently trust 
them. William pursues ornithology
during his leisure hours very steadily &
[tutoring?], as far especially as dissecting
goes, ardently; & he has received public 
praises from his professors in the logic 
class several times. Joseph as far as 
humane studies are concerned I have no 
fear of. He will be a good scholar & to 
botany he has added entomology, 
& what with his visit with me to the 
naturalists in England, especially to 
[?] & his own industry & presents 
from Germany & Prussia &c he has already
a very respectable cabinet of insects.
I have a sad loss in the mountains 
by the death of my long [time?] friend Mr. 
Telferin. His dying legacy of birds, plants
        