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Very faint memories of reading this, maybe 1971/1972 in an anthology.

It is not Mimsy Were the Borogoves by Henry Kuttner about kids getting lost in between dimensions.

In the story I'm looking for there is a small Terran (scientific?) explorer party on some alien world.

A scientist notices odd behaviours amongst the animals and Triffid type plants and begins logging it all, even though it's outside his normal field (mining or mineralogy?).

As he does he casually names the species by using the Lewis Carroll poem (it's possible those names were pre-designated by early surveyor group but he could have added a couple more himself from the poem) using slithy toves and mome raths etc.

I think he then realises this world matches the poem exactly, maybe his mind is influencing it, and the Jabberwock and Bandersnatch will soon be upon his party.

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    Bandersnatchi are giant slug-like intelligences that inhabit the equatorial regions of Jinx in Larry Niven's Known Space universe, and were named by an explorer who had been reading too much Lewis Carroll. However, not much else matches.
    – Spencer
    Commented Jul 30, 2019 at 10:20

1 Answer 1

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I could easily be wrong but I would suggest you are looking for "Chaos,Coordinated" by John Macdougal

Here is a short description of the work from the Encyclopaedia of SF. Collaborative pseudonym of James Blish and Robert A W Lowndes on "Chaos, Co-ordinated" (October 1946 Astounding), a story which makes comic science-fictional use of Lewis Carroll's The Hunting of the Snark: An Agony, in Eight Fits (1876 chap). [PN/DRL] links

As yet I have not been able to find an online copy of the text but will update this answer if I do.

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    It's online here: archive.org/details/Astounding_v38n02_1946-10_cape1736/page/n55 Doesn't look like a match, there is no scientist on an alien world. Commented Jul 31, 2019 at 2:20
  • excellent find thank you. You are correct its not a good fit. What should i do convert my answer to comment or just wait for the poster to confirm or reject the answer?
    – skyjack
    Commented Jul 31, 2019 at 2:44
  • I'd leave it, it's a legit answer, I upvoted. Commented Jul 31, 2019 at 3:24

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