Thank Heaven, we return home on Thursday, and I shall be able to go on with
my humdrum work, and that makes me forget my daily discomfort.

Have you ever thought of keeping a young monkey, so as to observe its mind?
At a house where we have been staying there were Sir A. and Lady Hobhouse,
not long ago returned from India, and she and he kept [a] young monkey and
told me some curious particulars. One was that her monkey was very fond of
looking through her eyeglass at objects, and moved the glass nearer and
further so as to vary the focus. This struck me, as Frank's son, nearly
two years old (and we think much of his intellect!!) is very fond of
looking through my pocket lens, and I have quite in vain endeavoured to
teach him not to put the glass close down on the object, but he always will
do so. Therefore I conclude that a child under two years is inferior in
intellect to a monkey.

Once again I heartily congratulate you on your well-earned present, and I
feel assured, grand future success.

(417/2. Later in the year Mr. Darwin wrote: "I am delighted to hear that
you mean to work the comparative Psychology well. I thought your letter to
the "Times" very good indeed. (417/3. Romanes wrote to the "Times" August
28th, 1878, expressing his views regarding the distinction between man and
the lower animals, in reply to criticisms contained in a leading article in
the "Times" of August 23rd on his lecture at the Dublin meeting of the
British Association.) Bartlett, at the Zoological Gardens, I feel sure,
would advise you infinitely better about hardiness, intellect, price, etc.,
of monkey than F. Buckland; but with him it must be viva voce.

"Frank says you ought to keep a idiot, a deaf mute, a monkey, and a baby in