'Entomologist's Weekly Intelligencer,' June 25th, 1859, recording the capture of Licinus silphoides, Clytus mysticus, Panagaeus 4-pustulatus. The notice begins with the words, "We three very young collectors having lately taken in the parish of Down," etc., and is signed by three of his boys, but was clearly not written by them. I have a vivid recollection of the pleasure of turning out my bottle of dead beetles for my father to name, and the excitement, in which he fully shared, when any of them proved to be uncommon ones. The following letters to Mr. Fox (November 13, 1858), and to Sir John Lubbock, illustrate this point:]
CHARLES DARWIN TO W.D. FOX. Down, November 13th [1858].
...W., my son, is now at Christ's College, in the rooms above yours. My old Gyp, Impey, was astounded to hear that he was my son, and very simply asked, "Why, has he been long married?" What pleasant hours those were when I used to come and drink coffee with you daily! I am reminded of old days by my third boy having just begun collecting beetles, and he caught the other day Brachinus crepitans, of immortal Whittlesea Mere memory. My blood boiled with old ardour when he caught a Licinus—a prize unknown to me...
CHARLES DARWIN TO JOHN LUBBOCK. Thursday [before 1857].
Dear Lubbock,
I do not know whether you care about beetles, but for the chance I send this in a bottle, which I never remember having seen; though it is excessively rash to speak from a twenty-five-year old remembrance. Whenever we meet you can tell me whether you know it...
I feel like an old war-horse at the sound of the trumpet, when I read about the capturing of rare beetles—is not this a magnanimous simile for a decayed entomologist?—It really almost makes me long to begin collecting again. Adios.