The Hunting of the Snark based on a draft by Lewis Carroll, the Snark was allowed to show up in an illustration by Henry Holiday, where it appeared in a dream of the Barrister. The illustration to the chapter "The Banker's Fate" might contain pictorial references to the etching "The Image Breakers" by Marcus Gheeraerts the Elder, to William Sidney Mount's painting "The Bone Player" and to a photograph by Benjamin Duchenne used for a drawing in Charles Darwin's "The Expression of Emotions in Man and Animals". Upon the printing of the book on 29 March 1876, Carroll gave away eighty signed copies to his
The Formation of Vegetable Mould through the Action of Worms went the less controversial direction of the lowly worm. His network of correspondents and fans responded to his interest and "earthworm anecdotes began surfacing in his mountain of mail". He had been interested in earthworms "since his first fishing days at The Mount and flirting days at Maer". Still, other work constrained him. Broken off from "Descent", he had to finish his next work "The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals". By 1876, with his first grandson on the way, he felt his writing life was nearly over, with so much unfinished. He wanted to write on earthworms