Sir

M^r. Truebner transmitted me the answer you had the kindness to make on my offer to be the Editor of a Russian translation of your new work, authorised by you.² Even if it is not a work for general reading, still, even in our country your name enjoys such a general and well deserved fame, that everything written by you is sure to awaken the liveliest interest, at least in the best part of our reading public. At all events I shall be very proud to be the editor of a Russian translation authorised by you, and you should make me quite happy if you thought fit to write two lines as an Introduction or Preface to my edition.³ I must aknowledge you that I am, besides being an editor, also a little naturalist now and still more so in spe,⁴ so that you will make me doubly happy by authorising me to be the Russian editor of your new work and adressing a few lines to this translation.— You can be quite sure that the translation of the work will be made most carefully, as I shall make it myself under the guidance of my brother who is lecturer of Zoology in the University of S Petersburg, but now temporarily absent on an excursion to Triest.⁵ I take the boldness to send you some of his Memoirs, perhaps some of his studies and it may be a little wild conceptions about the affinity of the Ascidian and vertebrate types by their history of developement shall, however lightly, interst you, whose most true and steady follower he professes to be.⁶

In finishing my letter, I shall beg your pardon for my bad English, and pray you, if you shall have a moment time, to inform me directly, or trough M. Truebner is there any hope that the first part of the work will be finisched this year, will it be illustrated and what approximative dimensions (in pr. sheets)⁷ it will have.—

Leaving the pecuniary arrangement entyrely to you, and if you will have the kindness to adress your resolution to M^r. Truebner, I shall wait with the utmost impatience of a naturalist and of your admirer, for the first printed sheets of your work which you had the kindness to promise to send me as soon as you receive them from the printer

I am | Sir | Your most true and impatient admirer | W. Kowalewsky

My adress. | S Petersbourg. | coin de la Petite Morskaja | A Gowchovaja m Mitkoff. N 19.