Dear Sir

after a weeks arrival at this place I take up my pen to thank you for every act of friendship you shewed me at Edinburgh which I shall retain a warm sense of.

I think bad as Sibbalds plates are they should be engraven again first as the work will be deficient, 2^dly as numbers of authors having referred to them, the public will feel the want of them.¹ The best figure of the whale you allude to is in the Ph. Trans.vol LX tab. IX. it may easily be reduced to oct^vo size as mine is vol. III. Br. Zool. I wish I cd. get a Sibbald Baleen & I w^d give you some notes &c.

Pray let the magazine be sent by Post except when I am absent which I will advise you of; & then they may lie by & sent in a hasp as I shall request. The depth of the Bridge will be most acceptable.

Pray examine the great Picture in Hamilton Lodgings H.Rood house, called H. Darnley, is not the Hat lying on a table by him & has it not a feather in it.

If possible learn from any friends in Edinburgh; the time of migrations of woodcocks in orknies or Shetland & whether they come in numbers.

My best complim^ts to M^r Menzies. He will oblige me by expediting his answers.

The same to M^r Campbell of the Bank: tell him his Picture is of Sir Tho. Father to the chancellor.

in haste
y^r affect Friend

Tho. Pennant

Downing oct^r 23^d 1772.

^Does this come free?

M

6

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Editorial notes

1. Robert Sibbald's 1692 Phalainologia nova, contained the first scientific description of the Blue Whale among other accounts of Scottish marine species, and was reprinted at Pennant's expense in 1773.