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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.
Pleased to hear that SC is prospering.
News of FitzRoy, Sulivan and J. L. Stokes.
The Crimean War is badly mismanaged, but Englishmen are behaving nobly.
Wishes he knew what to do with his boys.
CD’s tabulation of colonists curious but explicable.
Working on Tasmanian flora; contemplating general essay on Australian distribution: Tasmania and Australia same alpine species; Swan River flora very peculiar and quite distinct from New South Wales.
Trying to establish new journal at Linnean.
Hybrid insects.
Description of the Salvages.
Variability of "transition groups" of insects; relation of variability to ranges of insects. The variability of wings, even within species. Reduction of flying ability on isolated islands.
Forbes’s "Atlantis" theory and insect fauna of the Atlantic islands, considered with regard to insect migrations.
A page of [unspecified] text is missing from a parcel of material received from GRW.
CD "hopes and expects to live to see Carboniferous, & perhaps even Silurian, mammifers!"
Has several questions to ask whenever they meet.
Comparison of skulls of Ichthyosaurus and Cetacea.
Latitude overrules everything in distribution. Alpine distributions are like insular. Tabulating proportions.
T. V. Wollaston’s Madeira insects: many flightless, thus not blown to sea. TVW’s insects do not confirm Forbes’s Atlantis.
JDH criticises C. J. F. Bunbury’s paper on Madeira [J. Linn. Soc. Lond. (Bot.) 1 (1857): 1–35].
Absence of Ophrys on Madeira suggests to JDH a sequence in creation of groups.
Why are flightless insects common in desert?
Australian endemism.
Thanks THH for corroborating his observations. Discusses metamorphosis of ovaria to cement organs. Ovaries, germinal vesicles, and anatomy of cirripedes. Difficulties of classification, and observation.
THH’s article on Mollusca [Charles Knight, ed., English cyclopædia: a new dictionary of universal knowledge (1854–70) 3: 855–74].
Acknowledges a list [of plants?].
Looks forward to new edition [of British plants growing wild in the parish of Hitcham, Suffolk, 2d ed. (1855)].
JSH should not trouble about Anacharis until he is less busy. Will send cirripedes.
Can AH give information about D. A. Godron, "De l’espèce et des races" [Mem. Soc. Sci. Lett. & Arts Nancy (1847): 182, 239–88]? CD unable to locate reference.
CD has been a referee for LH’s Nile geology paper [Philos. Trans. R. Soc. Lond. 145 (1855): 105–38]. Praises the work but offers criticism not in his report: Joseph Russegger’s statement about the baked Upper Sandstone deposit cannot be believed; LH’s paper is too long.
Asks WDF to observe at what age pigeons have tail-feathers sufficiently developed to be counted.
CD is hard at work on his notes for a book with all the facts "for & versus" the immutability of species.
Asks for a young chicken and a nestling common pigeon.
On the ova of the salmon in relation to the distribution of species.
Will forward JD’s paper to the Royal Society ["On the ova of salmon", Philos. Trans. R. Soc. Lond. 146 (1856): 21–9].
Discusses JD’s paper ["On ova of salmon"]. His experiments are of particular value regarding power of dispersal and geographical distribution and would make of them a very different subject. Hopes JD can test again the tenacity of life of non-developed ova being less than that of those fully developed – a result which surprised CD.
Thanks JSH for Anacharis which is flourishing.
P. H. Gosse told him he had several sea animals and algae living in artificial sea-water for over 13 months.
Thanks WDF for his offer of assistance in collecting varieties of poultry. Describes his needs. He will raise his own pigeons.
Often doubts whether, despite all help, the problem of species will not overpower him.
Requests HM’s article in the Witness [24 Feb 1855; see HM, "On the late severe frost", Proc. R. Phys. Soc. Edinburgh 1 (1854–8): 10–14], on the effects of frost on shells. CD expresses admiration for the two works by HM he has read.
Thanks AH for seeking reference. If AH cannot find Godron [see 1648] it is hopeless. Thanks for reference to C. F. Hornschuch.
Thinks J. O. Westwood deserves Royal Society’s Gold Medal. Asks THH’s opinion of his nomination. Lyell deserves Copley Medal, but, since he has Royal Medal, it may be objectionable to propose him.