Replies to CD’s query (see 3778): the queens or females of the humble bees are not fertilised in the air. Offers a number of observations relating to the fertilisation of bees and wasps, which he has made in the course of sixty years.
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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.
Replies to CD’s query (see 3778): the queens or females of the humble bees are not fertilised in the air. Offers a number of observations relating to the fertilisation of bees and wasps, which he has made in the course of sixty years.
Mr Campbell (recommended by H. Spencer) would be a treasure but doubts any man has patience to experiment at another’s suggestion.
Jocular comments about THH’s audacity in doubting Catasetum.
Tells of a shooting competition at Down.
Has been working hard at orchid drawings with G. B. Sowerby, Jr.
Ice could not have formed the blockages in Lochaber unless in every case the water escaped over some col into a contiguous valley on the same watershed, or into the eastern watershed. Supposes that the cols were not land-straits, but the places where the lakes were drained when forced to flow the wrong way.
Asks H. W. Newman whether the queen humble-bee is fertilised on the ground or in the air, and whether the fertilisation often takes place as late as September. [Newman’s reply follows CD’s letter.]