Trin. Coll. <1>
Apr 27th
Dear Talbot
You will do me a most essential service by lending me your reflecting microscope. My little instrument is so much improved since you saw it that I want some very good one to compare it with.
Airy <2> gave us a lecture on optics this morning, and explained the theory of oblique reflexion in the most superb manner.
If I have patience I mean to make a study of Butterfly’s & Moth’s feathers, a subject hitherto untouched as far as I know.
Yours very truly
H Coddington
W. H. F. Talbot Esqre
Sackville Street
London
31
Notes:
1. Trinity College, Cambridge.
2. Sir George Biddell Airy (1801–1892), Astronomer Royal.