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Darwin, C. R. in correspondent 
Tait, Lawson in correspondent 
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From:
Charles Robert Darwin
To:
Robert Lawson (Lawson) Tait
Date:
4 June [1875]
Source of text:
Natural History Museum, Library and Archives (General Special Collections DC AL 1/19)
Summary:

CD’s observations on the power of movement and transmission of motor impulses in plants. If RLT succeeds with the tails of mice, it will be "a beautiful little discovery"; CD will enjoy it the more "because some German sneered at natural selection and instanced the tail of the mouse" [see 10013].

Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
From:
Charles Robert Darwin
To:
Robert Lawson (Lawson) Tait
Date:
11 June [1875]
Source of text:
DAR 221.5: 24–5
Summary:

Has found that H. G. Bronn in the chapter appended to his translation of Origin cited ears and tail of mice as facts opposed to natural selection. Suggests RLT examine hairs of tails of mice for possible nerves.

Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
From:
Charles Robert Darwin
To:
Robert Lawson (Lawson) Tait
Date:
13 June [1875]
Source of text:
DAR 221.5: 26
Summary:

RLT’s observations come too late, as CD’s book on Droseraceae has been printed.

Reports on his observations of ferment in secretions in Drosera rotundifolia and Drosophyllum.

Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
From:
Charles Robert Darwin
To:
Robert Lawson (Lawson) Tait
Date:
[after 17 June 1875]
Source of text:
Shrewsbury School, Taylor Library
Summary:

RLT will find abundant evidence of absorption by Aldrovanda in CD’s forthcoming book [Insectivorous plants]. Congratulates him on his discovery of ferments.

Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
From:
Charles Robert Darwin
To:
Robert Lawson (Lawson) Tait
Date:
17 [July 1875]
Source of text:
DAR 221.5: 27
Summary:

Informs RLT of J. D. Hooker’s work on Nepenthes ["Nepenthaceae, Cytinaceae", in Prodromus systematis naturalis regni vegetabilis by A. P. de Candolle (1873), 17: 90–116].

Has asked JDH to try secretions of pitchers that had caught no insects.

Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
From:
Charles Robert Darwin
To:
Robert Lawson (Lawson) Tait
Date:
20 July [1875]
Source of text:
DAR 221.5: 28
Summary:

CD returns MS of a paper by RLT. "If you have succeeded in separating the ferment, the fact is manifestly important." Asks whether RLT tested the digestive ability of fluid from pitchers without animal matter. This would be necessary to prove that there was ferment in the fluid. CD is glad to hear about the [passage?] for guiding insects; he had guessed this to be the case.

Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
From:
Charles Robert Darwin
To:
Robert Lawson (Lawson) Tait
Date:
10 Sept [1875]
Source of text:
Shrewsbury School, Taylor Library
Summary:

CD gives a few instances of various animals (starfish, earwigs, spiders) that take charge of their young.

Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
From:
Charles Robert Darwin
To:
Robert Lawson (Lawson) Tait
Date:
15 Aug [1875]
Source of text:
Leeds University Library Special Collections (Brotherton Collection, tipped into Insectivorous plants (1875): MS Misc. Letters 2)
Summary:

Thanks him for his kind review of Insectivorous plants in the Spectator. Disputes Tait’s report of a Nepenthes that trapped a fly but did not digest it.

Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
From:
Charles Robert Darwin
To:
Robert Lawson (Lawson) Tait
Date:
14 Oct [1875]
Source of text:
Department of Special Collections, Kenneth Spencer Research Library, University of Kansas (MS 331 box 1 folder 11)
Summary:

Will be happy to present RLT’s paper on Nepenthes to Royal Society.

Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
From:
Charles Robert Darwin
To:
Robert Lawson (Lawson) Tait
Date:
27 Nov [1875]
Source of text:
DAR 221.5: 30
Summary:

Because CD has been unwell, he has not read RLT’s paper carefully, but it seems an important contribution to science. Hopes RLT’s chemical observations will be confirmed. It seems a great anomaly that two substances with an acid should be requisite for digestion.

Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
From:
Charles Robert Darwin
To:
Robert Lawson (Lawson) Tait
Date:
1 Dec [1875]
Source of text:
Josh B. Rosenblum (private collection)
Summary:

Abstract sent to the Royal Society. It seems to CD "uncommonly clear and well-done".

Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
From:
Charles Robert Darwin
To:
Robert Lawson (Lawson) Tait
Date:
22 Feb [1876]
Source of text:
Randall House, Santa Barbara (dealers) (Catalogue XXV, 1993)
Summary:

Herbert Spencer invented the term "survival of the fittest". CD used it but found "natural selection" more convenient.

He has often spoken of natural selection’s destruction of individuals which do not come up to "proper standards of structure", which comes to nearly the same thing as RLT’s suggested distinction.

Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
From:
Charles Robert Darwin
To:
Robert Lawson (Lawson) Tait
Date:
2 Mar 1876
Source of text:
DAR 147: 527
Summary:

Thanks RLT for his letter. CD took much trouble over his two cases [regrowth of amputated supernumerary digits, in Variation] but the evidence was shaky.

Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
From:
Charles Robert Darwin
To:
Robert Lawson (Lawson) Tait
Date:
25 Mar [1876]
Source of text:
DAR 221.5: 33
Summary:

RLT’s two articles in Spectator [4 Mar and 25 Mar 1876] greatly honour CD.

Tait has made a good point about "Survival of the Fittest".

Dr Rudinger’s extensive inquiries show that all eminent German surgeons are unanimous about non-growth of extra digit after amputation.

J. Kollmann has written regretting CD has given up atavism and extra digits [in 2d ed. of Variation]; gives new evidence of a rudimentary sixth digit in batrachians.

Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
From:
Charles Robert Darwin
To:
Robert Lawson (Lawson) Tait
Date:
28 Mar 1876
Source of text:
Roy Davids Ltd (dealer) (1996)
Summary:

James Paget’s scepticism about regrowth of digits. Suggests RLT experiment with amputation of digits, both extra and normal, of kittens and fowls. Fears they will fail to regrow, but, if regrowth is proved, it will be an important discovery.

Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
From:
Charles Robert Darwin
To:
Robert Lawson (Lawson) Tait
Date:
24 Apr 1876
Source of text:
DAR 202: 84
Summary:

The Royal Society have returned RLT’s Nepenthes paper and will not have it read because of unfavourable reports from referees.

Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
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From:
Charles Robert Darwin
To:
Robert Lawson (Lawson) Tait
Date:
29 Apr [1876]
Source of text:
DAR 221.5: 36
Summary:

Sends Thiselton-Dyer’s suggestions for references to Nepenthes,

and gives his opinion on what will influence the Royal Society’s Council in considering RLT’s candidacy.

Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
From:
Charles Robert Darwin
To:
Robert Lawson (Lawson) Tait
Date:
5 May 1876
Source of text:
Shrewsbury School, Taylor Library
Summary:

CD sends the gist of an extremely negative report from the [Royal Society’s] physiological referee on the value of RLT’s modifications of Brücke’s process for isolating pepsin [see 10470].

Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
From:
Charles Robert Darwin
To:
Robert Lawson (Lawson) Tait
Date:
6 Aug 1876
Source of text:
DAR 221.5: 35
Summary:

CD accepts membership in the Birmingham Natural History Society.

Thanks RLT for article. CD cannot quite agree that "under a theological point of view, the origin of evil is explained by survival".

Is glad RLT has not given up polydactylism.

Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
From:
Charles Robert Darwin
To:
Robert Lawson (Lawson) Tait
Date:
17 Jan [1877]
Source of text:
DAR 221.5: 37
Summary:

CD has only a trifling point to make in criticism [of RLT’s excerpt from Diseases of women]: he believes "the high value of well-bred males is due to their transmitting their good qualities to a far greater number of offspring than can the female".

Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project