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[in another hand] G. King

Hotel des Anglais

San Remo

Italy

15 Jan^y 1900

Dear Mr Darwin

I am afraid you will think me very dilatory in writing to you about John Scott. But I am not altogether without a defense. I have here two large boxes of unarranged letters which were sent home when I left

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Calcutta, & these letters cover many years, & amongst them I hoped to find something which would enable me to give you some particulars about John Scott. I regret however that the result of my examination of them has been disappointing. I found only one which gives much

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information. It is from your father to Scott & was given to me by the latter. I now enclose it, but I would ask you kindly to return it to me.
I send a few notes of my own which are however hardly worth offering to you.
I hope you have

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escaped Influenza which the newspapers describe as so prevalent in England. With kind regards and many apologies for the delay in complying with your request, believe me, yours sincerely

G. King

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Although I had previously heard a good deal about John Scott, I did not become personally acquainted with him until I went in 1871 to the Botanic Garden, calcutta as Superintendent. He was then Curator of that Garden, and as the result of a long and continuous residence in Bengal, he had by that time fallen into rather feeble health. He never recovered his health and I thus knew

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knew nothing of Scott personally while he was in his prime. Of Scotts early history I know very little. He was born in Scotland at a little village near Hawick named Denholm in the public square of which there stands a monument to the memory of another distinguished native - the minor poet Leiden probably unknown to you.

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but of whom I have heard Scott speak. I do not know anything about Scotts' parents, but I have heard him on several occasions refer to a maternal uncle named Duncan who was an entomologist and who contributed, during the first half of the century, various articles mostly entomological to encyclopaedias and periodicals. This

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