Obliged for JW’s information on variability of size of bees’ cells. Hexagonal cells not always work of several insects. W. H. Miller found great variability in thickness of cell walls.
Showing 21–40 of 182 items
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.
Obliged for JW’s information on variability of size of bees’ cells. Hexagonal cells not always work of several insects. W. H. Miller found great variability in thickness of cell walls.
Will be pleased to sign FWF’s certificate for the Royal Society if he can send it to CD, who does not have the strength to go to London.
Discussion of Mrs Agassiz’s letter [to Mary Lyell, forwarded to CD] regarding S. American glacial action,
with comments on Bunbury’s letter on temperate plants.
Refers to opinions of Agassiz, David Forbes, Hooker, and CD on glacial period and glaciers.
Wishes he had published a long chapter on glacial period [Natural selection, pp. 535–66] written ten years ago.
Tells of death of his sister, Catherine, and other family matters.
Asks botanical readers to inform him "whether in those monoecious or dioecious plants, in which the flowers are widely different, it has ever been observed that half the flower, or only a segment of it, has been of one sex and the other half or segment of the opposite sex, in the same manner as so frequently occurs with insects?"
Orders Richard Owen’s Anatomy of vertebrates [1866–8],
subscribes to Annals and Magazine of Natural History,
and orders three back numbers of Medical Times and Gazette.
Discusses beauty of birds and butterflies.
Thanks for sending facts on birds admiring themselves; mentions use in new edition [4th] of Origin.
Thanks CL for Hooker’s letter.
Discussion of Hooker’s views on glacial action and temperature with specific reference to S. America.
His squabbles with Hooker on transport of seeds via water currents,
temperate plants, and preservation of tropical plants during cooler period.
Expresses interest in seeing Agassiz’s letter.
Regrets that his health prevents their meeting, but offers some suggestions for the expedition to the Malay Archipelago and coast of China: the search of caverns in the Malay Archipelago for fossil bones, deep sea dredging in the tropics, glacial action in any moderately steep mountains, means of geographical distribution, the history of domestic animals in these regions, and gestures and expressions of real savages as compared with our civilised expressions. [See 5008 and 5011.]
Requests copy of paper read at Amsterdam Horticultural Congress, on graft-hybrids like that of Cytisus adami [see 5018].
Comments on errors [in Origin] pointed out in C. J. F. Bunbury’s letters.
Mentions CD’s notes on Drimys, Fuchsia, and fossil mammals of Brazilian caves.
Sorrowful that his work must be put aside because Murray wants a new [4th] edition of Origin. Remarks on changes to be made regarding Organ Mountains and Agassiz’s glacial markings.
CD is pleased [about need for a new edition of Origin] but even more grieved – for it will delay his next book [Variation]. Progress of natural history will make many changes necessary in Origin. Nevertheless, proceeds with 32 more woodcuts for Variation.
Refers to part of JDH letter on glacial period sent on to Lyell. CD will not yield. Cannot think how JDH attaches so much attention to physicists. Has "come not to care at all for general beliefs without the special facts".
His health is improved but not so good as JDH supposes.
Has returned memorial to Chancellor of Exchequer; thanks CL for his note.
Lengthy remarks on cool period. Did not know of CL’s interest. New facts in new German and English [4th] editions of Origin will be too late for CL’s use. CD’s ten-year-old MS on cool period is available.
Thanks RC for photograph and for papers, which are of highest interest to CD. He is not fully convinced about the rose by RC’s graft-hybrid paper [Bull. Congr. Int. Bot. & Hortic. Amsterdam (1865): 65–80]. Still retains faith in his own view that no plant is perpetually self-fertilised.
Gives details of enclosed MS on cool period. Mentions Hooker’s opposed "axis of the earth" view. Causes of glacial period are beyond CD; "cannot believe change in land and water being more than a subsidiary agent".
Thanks for the paper on Sterrha (McLachlan 1865).
Writes on slave-making ants; cannot explain why fewer slaves are caught in England than in Switzerland.
Asks [Secretary] to list the proper titles of foreign societies of which he is an honorary member; he has mislaid diplomas.
Extensive discussion of Pangenesis in reply to JDH’s comments.