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Eversley Rectory
Winchfield

[June?] 17/69

My dear Mr. Buckland

I have been in such trouble and anxiety (all right now, thank God) that I have overlooked your letter. Many thanks for the Fisheries report most valuable full of sound sense: but what stupid people the English are. They will not see that Salmon food is a great national questions, like the cornlaws and must be carries, every one fielding his private rights for the common good. I have not read [?] [?] but I will. Meanwhile I beg to report to you [?] [?] to [?] My second specimen of Coronella Lovis, Coronella Austriaca. I suspect that he was at one time not uncommon here but killed by turf cutters as a Viper. He seems confined to these S. Eastern [moors?]. He may be an old pre-glacial form, as these moors were not submerged after the beginning of the glacial epoch, but as he has not spread over, side by side with the Natterjacks on my lawn, [?] late, just before the Straits of Dover were eaten through.

Yours ever

[C. Kingsley?]

Monday 10 April 1933

Note

'Charles to keep'

Dear Charles
In his last letter Hugh asked me to get him a copy of 'The Sunday Companion' of the 16th April 1932, as it had a picture of the Grand-father and his family at dinner. After a great deal of trouble I have managed to get a copy from the Editor of 'The Sunday Companion' as a favour on my telling them that it was a picture of the Grand-father. This picture has been shown to all here, also to Frank, Ernest etc. 'The Sunday Companion' publishers do not keep old copies for long, and the one wanted for the 16th April 1932 is a long way back for them. The picture is beautifully drawn and arranged showing very careful details. The words of description are splendid and very well deserved as the Grandfather's and Uncle Frank's good works have lasted so long. I am sending you the original picture, a typed sheet of the article, and three rough pencil tracings. Later on when you have done with it I would like to have the original picture back to send it to Hugh, as it was Hugh that found out about this. There is lovely sun here [?] and I are getting on well with the new foundations of the greenhouse and hope to make a lot of progress at it during the Easter holidays. I have been trying to help with typing some of his letters. I hope you are all keeping fairly well and taking care of yourselves.
Yours ever
C.W.Gordon

Holly Lodge
East Molesy
Surrey

Wednesday 12th April 1933

Dear Charles

It was very good and thoughtful of you to have returned the original of the Grandfather's picture and two of the tracings everso many thanks I am going to keep one of the tracings for myself and send the other and the original picture on to Hugh by tomorrow's South African Mail. He will be very glad to get it. They were very busy in the Editor's office of the 'Sunday Companion' when I called, and I did not get an opportunity of asking where the original picture is and whom it belongs to, but if I hear anything more of interest about it I will be sure to let you know.

I have been watering the plants in the garden every evening and some of them have been shooting up fine, we mowed the lawn for the first time on last Saturday and there was quite a large amount of fresh green grass. Judging from the fine show of white blossom it should be a good apple & plum year. A fresh supply of cement and sand arrived here from the builders this morning, ready for [?] & me during Easter time.
I hope you all have a good Easter
All good wishes
C.W.Gordon

Nov 3/8 1832
Port Louis, Mauritius

My dear Sir
I have had an opportunity lately of making some researches about the fossil bones of the Dronte or Dodo. One of the Kings ships the Talbot having gone from [here] to visit the Island of Rodriguez on which occasion my friend Colonel Dawkins undertook to bring me the bird if it existed - or its bones if they were [?] found. I send you the result of his researches and the specimens that have been collected in consequence - begging that wherever there are duplicates they may be given to the Ashmolean Museum for whose curators Mr Duncan and I have the highest esteem and respect. It was from him that the first impulse emanated which set us to work on this subject. Long before this letter reaches you I trust you will have received from Mr Barclays a communication of the specimens contained in two boxes shipped on board the [Salvation?] Captain Addison, I have heard that the eagle I sent you arrived safe after having devoured the last living animal on board, a fine cat that was sacrificed with great regret for his preservation - I now send you in care of Mr. Vinet Secretary to the Governor by the [?] Captain Hunt & hope that you will find some novelties in them - I kept the white Hawk alive for several months in the hopes of a good occasion to forward him - he was a noble creature you will find him stuffed and in the same box with the bones of the supposed Dodo together with the stuffed specimen of the ["oiseau a boeuf" of Rodrigues] Crow of Madagascar. I have some curious living tortoises to send to you from the Amirantes Islands but I wish to give them a Summer passage - I had a stuffed specimen of the "Oiseau a Boeuf" for you from Rodriguez but I find it so eaten up by insects that it would be wrong to forward it with the others - enclosed in a letter I have received from my friend David Griffiths the missionary at [?] you will see that I may expect some Madagascan specimens of the Tandraka and the Sokina he has sent me a very curious fable [?] the conversation between the [Mamba?] or Crocodile and the Sokina with a translation of it into English, this latter being interesting to the learned in Eastern languages. I have sent it to my friend Mr. Calder of Calcutta to publish in the Transactions of the Asiatic Society where as they have already done with several translations - poems and legendary tales I had forwarded to them. You shall have the specimens of the Sokia and Tandraka by the first good occasion. Enclosed is a Madagascan version of the Psalms. I wish some of the religious societies at home would send a large supply of paper for printing at Tananarivo. There are six thousand people in the school and a great thirst for information. The local gov. here does what it can to favour the spread of knowledge - but in these times of economy the supplies are very limited. I had got so far in my letter when yours of the 14th July reached me - with your very welcome parcel of proceedings of the Society for which I beg [you] to express my best thanks "among the flacons" containing the fish in the larger case you will find an animal which I think you will consider quite new. I never saw it before it was sent to me lately from the Interior and southern part of Madagascar - and I have not seen any of the Madagascan people here that were acquainted with it. It is the most savage creature of its size I ever met - its motions & powers & activity were those of a tyger and it had the same appetite for blood & destruction of animal life - its muscular force was very great & the muscles of the limbs remarkably full and thick - it lived with me some months, we took it for a new species of Viverra but you will soon [determine?] all about it. Our poor colony has been sadly buffeted by misfortunes & bankrupting from the utter extinction of value in colonial property [from] owing to the measures of the anticolonial party at home, our young men have been disheartened in their pursuits of science by the presence of misery. I told you that our Cath. Bishop had upset our Chair of Natural History - & having done all the harm he could stole away furtively from the island, he has not since been heard of - we have now no professorship of science in our college, neither Natural Philosophy, Nat. History - Botany nor Chemistry - all of which I had introduced into the course of Education in the College of Port Louis of which I am Vice President, If the Minister would recommend to the Governor the re-establishment of these professorships - it would be a great favour to the unlucky youths of the island & attach their fathers & families to the Minister who restored them this boon. There is no better man living than our present Governor but his hands are tied in all that regards expense & however disposed to favour the rising generation he cannot afford to do it out of his own pocket. Your letters & communications cheer our little scientific circle & encourages us to exertion & particularly your notices of us in your proceedings which are very flattering.

Your sincerely obliged friend

C. Telfair

Port Louis, Mauritius
Feby 25/26 1833

My dear Sir,

I send you under charge of Dr. Wallace of the Royal George - two tortoises from the islands of the Amirantes to the Eastwards of Seychelles - and one of a different description from the Harbour of Mombaza on the East coast of Africa. He will also present you in the name of the Honourable Lady Colville - a Chameleon from the North of Madagascar. I beg you to recommend Dr [Wallace?] to any kind attention you can show him regarding your garden Menagerie in return for the care & trouble he takes in conducting these animals to you. I have requested that in case of death they may be put in spirits & presented for your dissection. I send you in a flacon, preserved in spirits - an animal which you will find undescribed. I hope I have already written to you about it. - it comes from the [interior?] of Madagascar where it is called the "Sokinoh" A pair of the animals was sent to me from the Queen in charge of one of the members of her deputation which lately visited the Mauritians - this couple escaped our of their cage - they appear of the genus of Tandrek but differ in many [?] points - they left the little one I now send you - it was dropt by the mother the night she escaped & I fed it on milk for seventeen days when it died - I put it in the flacon with spirits & afterwards put in the same flacon a chameleon which died in my Court being hurt by a bittern of Madagascar who wished to swallow it. I have written to you by Sir Charles Colville today

believe me very sincerely
your obliged friend and servant

C. Telfair

My dear Sir

I have received and I need not say with much thankfulness your Lecture on the Potato Disaster and its Remedies which you had the great kindness to direct to me. The malady is so dreadful and the manner in which you have treated it, is so admirable that I am at a loss to tell you with how much interest I have read it and how greatly I feel myself indebted to you on the occasion. Here in Norfolk, I am much happy to say, the disaster does not appear to be by any means so prevalent or destructive as in most other places. Different people give me very different statements; but on the whole I quite infer that not a fourth part of the crop is destroyed. Lord Gosford too writes me work from Armagh that, tho in the varying reports brought him, he can [?] to no certain result he has reason to hope the evil has been greatly exaggerated by report; and so will send [?] from the [opposite?] County of Cork, that even if it amounts to a third, which he doubts, there is still no ground for doom inasmuch as they always exported that proportion of their produce to England. You give me great comfort by the assurance that the disease, is not new but frequent in Canada, on which point I will write to Lord Gosford and try to learn somewhat from [?] [?] whom I expect here tomorrow, and it is needless to add that, if I have anything likely to interest you, I will not fail to communicate it. But your lecture is so charming and full of interest from beginning to end, that if I want to allow myself to set about praising you here, thanking you there, and in another place begging for information or expressing a doubt I feel I shd never have done. One only point I therefore will mention, if I do it in [?] quality of another of the Lichenographic Brittanica and consequently jealous for the honour of the Lichens that, if my memory serves and Sir John Franklin did not live entirely without food, but found considerable support from the Umbilicaria that he gathered from the rocks. You will excuse my taking this opportunity of congratulating you, as I do still more heartily the country upon your appointment to the Dean of Westminster. This will bring you and me within 5 hours of each other and I trust I shall often have the pleasure of meeting you, and occasionally of receiving you and Mrs Buckland at this house. In the midst of the present distress Yarmouth has been surprisingly favoured. Our merchants have just concluded the most prosperous fishing known in the memory of man. They tell me too that herrings are [?] good, to which verdict I shall be glad if you can [?] in that hope. I took the liberty of [?] a small cask of them to you yesterday. Sir Joseph Banks sent to tell me he got none equally good as those I sent him, to find you repeat the same will be a great pleasure to my dear Sir
Ever most truly with the greatest
esteemed regards
[?] Turner