Sends FS some specimens of harvesting ants along with the observations of their habits made by Mary Treat. If the facts are new, he believes that Mrs Treat would be gratified by their being mentioned before the Entomological Society. [See 11422.]
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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 FS some specimens of harvesting ants along with the observations of their habits made by Mary Treat. If the facts are new, he believes that Mrs Treat would be gratified by their being mentioned before the Entomological Society. [See 11422.]
Thanks CD for specimens of, and curious facts on, the "harvesting ant".
Sends drawings of two forms of workers of Cryptocerus discocephalus in response to CD’s request for examples of insects whose workers show disparity of form.
Identifies an ant described by CD and discusses the predatory habits of Formica sanguinea.
Describes some wasps’ nests.
Four queries regarding the habits of bees and ants with answers by FS interlined between each query.
Has FS observed the slaves of Formica sanguinea foraging outside the nest.
Reports his observations on the habits of slave-making ants (Formica sanguinea).
Has studied CD’s Jamaican hive-bees and finds them identical to Apis mellifica.
Discusses the structure of wasps’ and bees’ nests
and the occurrence of winged and apterous individuals within some insect genera and species.
Variations in sizes of bees’ cells.
Discusses pollen-masses found on various insects.
Sends, for identification, specimens of bees and wasps which fertilise orchids. [Notes in FS’s hand on the same sheet identify the specimens.]
Roughly identifies some insects sent by CD; is waiting to see Francis Walker, who, he believes, has written a monograph on the family to which they belong.
Has seen Francis Walker, who has identified CD’s two Hymenoptera species ["caught in Musk Orchis" – CD note].
Has been unable to find a book [unspecified] wanted by CD.
Discusses the stinging habits of wasps and bees and whether or not they leave their sting in the wound.
On the relative size of sexes in aculeate Hymenoptera. [See Descent 1: 347–8.]
On the colours of sexes of Australian bees [see Descent 1: 366].
On stridulation of Coleoptera, Trox sabulosus, Mutilla. [See Descent 1: 380.]
Both sexes of Mononychus pseudacori and other Coleoptera stridulate.
Sends reference to stridulation in an article about Scolytus by Dr Chapman "Observations on the economy of British species of Scolytus", Entomol. Mon. Mag. 6 (1870): 126–31.