This letter is part of "Extracts from Letters Written by the Hon. Bertrand Russell in Brixton Prison, August 1918", sent to Gilbert Murray. "Dear Miss Rinder, your letter has not yet arrived, but I will begin with various odds and ends." The original letter is no longer extant.

There are four other transcriptions of this letter which contain a paragraph about the canary and the ourang-outang but they are not complete:

Document .054846, record 79640.
Document .200299f, record 19331 (carbon of .054846, record 79640).
Document .201183, record 116692.
Document .200299e, record 19330 (carbon of document .201183).
There is another typed version, document .080040f, record 117621, with corrections and the remark about the canary annotated in BR's hand.