Sends a letter from William Huggins about a case of inherited fright in three generations of mastiffs. Discusses the different origins of instincts and their inheritance.
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The Charles Darwin Collection
The Darwin Correspondence Project is publishing letters written by and to the naturalist Charles Darwin (1809–1882). Complete transcripts of letters are being made available through the Project’s website (www.darwinproject.ac.uk) after publication in the ongoing print edition of The Correspondence of Charles Darwin (Cambridge University Press 1985–). Metadata and summaries of all known letters (c. 15,000) appear in Ɛpsilon, and the full texts of available letters can also be searched, with links to the full texts.
Sends a letter from William Huggins about a case of inherited fright in three generations of mastiffs. Discusses the different origins of instincts and their inheritance.
Recounts instances suggesting that animals have a sense of direction.
In reply to a query [in Nature 19 (1879): 433] CD reports that vessels full of water were kept on the deck of a ship to discourage rats from gnawing holes in the ship’s water casks.
Comments on article ["Perception and instinct in lower animals", Nature 7 (1871): 377–8].
Explains his contention that "many of the most wonderful instincts have been acquired, independently of habit, through the preservation of useful variations of pre-existing instincts". Cites examples: sterile workers of several species of social insects have acquired different instincts; movements of tumbler pigeons. Speculates that "many instincts have originated from modification or variations in the brain".
"The following fact with respect to the habits of ants, which I believe to be quite new, has been sent to me by a distinguished geologist, Mr J. D. Hague [see 8788]; and it appears well worth publishing."
Sends a letter from J. D. Hague confirming his earlier observation [see 8788] of frightened behaviour of ants when they come upon dead ants. CD had asked for confirmation because J. T. Moggridge had suggested that the ants’ behaviour was alarm at the scent of the observer’s fingers.
CD, in commenting on Wyville Thomson’s "Notes from the Challenger" [Nature 8 (1873): 347–9], recapitulates his work on rudimentary male cirripedes [Living Cirripedia], especially the complementary males attached to hermaphrodites. Offers an explanation, on evolutionary grounds, of their function and size.
Sends, with CD’s approval, a clarification of CD’s explanation of how useless organs might diminish [see 9061]. Using Quetelet’s law of normal distribution GHD shows how horns of cattle, having become useless, would gradually diminish and finally disappear.
Prefaces Fritz Müller’s observations on termites and stingless bees [see 9281].
Comments on J. T. Moggridge’s article on the fertilisation of Fumaria capreolata [Nature 9 (1874): 423].
CD has observed hundreds of primrose flowers cut off their stalks, and conjectures that this was done by birds to obtain the nectar. Asks readers of Nature in England and abroad whether primroses are subject to such destruction in their localities.
Thanks Nature correspondents for their observations on destruction of primroses [Nature 9 (1874): 509; 10 (1874): 6–7]. Reports an error in his observations: ovules, as well as nectar, are taken by the birds. As the habit of cutting off primrose flowers is widespread, CD concludes it is instinctive in bullfinches.
Darwin consents to his correspondence with Pieter Harting being published in Nature.