Asks for information on coloration and proportions of sexes in butterflies and moths for his work on sexual selection.
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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.
Asks for information on coloration and proportions of sexes in butterflies and moths for his work on sexual selection.
Discusses factors possibly influencing the sex of caterpillars. Is gathering information on sex ratios in insects and would welcome any cases in which males seem to outnumber females.
Asks whether the colouring of particular butterflies has any protective function, to ascertain whether the function is other than sexual.
Thanks HTS for his valuable information. Hopes to arrive at probable answer to question of proportion of males to females in the progeny of butterflies bred in domestication.
On courtship of butterflies, CD believes something more than chance is involved in determining which male is successful.
Sends a preliminary reply to CD’s query [5890]. Ten males to one female among captured micro-Lepidoptera. Six females to four or five males in those he has bred. HTS is aware this is diametrically opposed to information from [Alexander] Wallace and Bates, but the true proportion of sexes can only be ascertained by breeding.
Replies to CD on proportion of sexes in butterflies, coloration of moths, and courtship. Encloses copies of letters on these subjects between HTS, Henry Doubleday, and John Hellins.
Protective coloration in butterflies.
[Alexander] Wallace’s suggestion that collecting larger larvae of females accounts for error in counting proportion of sexes.