From:
Raphael Meldola
To:
Charles Robert Darwin
Date:
18 Apr 1879
Source of text:
DAR 171: 136
Summary:
Comments on the branchiate trichopteran specimen from Fritz Müller sent previously.
Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
From:
Raphael Meldola
To:
Charles Robert Darwin
Date:
4 June 1879
Source of text:
DAR 171: 137
Summary:
Wants to republish Fritz Müller’s paper ["Ituna and Thyridia", Kosmos 5 (1879): 100–8] in Proceedings of the Entomological Society. [Thyridita!?]
Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
From:
Charles Robert Darwin
To:
Raphael Meldola
Date:
6 June [1879]
Source of text:
Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine Archives (Essex Naturalists Field Club, Meldola papers)
Summary:
Suggests he write to Ernst Krause about publication of translation of Fritz Müller’s paper. FM’s view of mutual protection is quite new to CD.
Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
From:
Raphael Meldola
To:
Charles Robert Darwin
Date:
18 June 1879
Source of text:
DAR 171: 138
Summary:
Discusses Fritz Müller’s paper on the mutual protection of certain mimics ["Ituna and Thyridita", Trans. R. Entomol. Soc. Lond. (1879): xx–xxviii]. [Thyridia!?]
Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
From:
Charles Robert Darwin
To:
Raphael Meldola
Date:
19 [June 1879]
Source of text:
Oxford University Museum of Natural History (Hope Entomological Collections 1350: Hope/Westwood Archive, Darwin folder)
Summary:
Shares RM’s misgivings about Fritz Müller’s mutually protecting mimics. Would expect bird’s response to distasteful caterpillars to be instinctive. Believes J. J. Weir or Thomas Belt may have investigated the point.
Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
From:
Raphael Meldola
To:
Charles Robert Darwin
Date:
11 Dec 1879
Source of text:
DAR 171: 139
Summary:
Sends subscription form for English edition of Weismann’s Studien.
Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
From:
Charles Robert Darwin
To:
Raphael Meldola
Date:
12 Dec [1879]
Source of text:
Oxford University Museum of Natural History (Hope Entomological Collections 1350: Hope/Westwood Archive, Darwin folder)
Summary:
Would like to subscribe to English edition of Weismann.
Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
From:
Charles Robert Darwin
To:
Raphael Meldola
Date:
28 Jan [1871]
Source of text:
Oxford University Museum of Natural History (Hope Entomological Collections 1350: Hope/Westwood Archive, Darwin folder)
Summary:
Thanks RM for information on case of hexadactyly [see RM’s paper, "Hexadactylism", Land and Water, 11 March 1871, p. 179.
Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
From:
Raphael Meldola
To:
Charles Robert Darwin
Date:
7 June 1871
Source of text:
DAR 171: 116
Summary:
Discusses the origin and advantages of sexual differentiation in terms of division of labour.
Discusses the origin of the giraffe’s neck and the unsoundness of St G. J. Mivart’s view with respect to it.
Points out an error in Descent.
Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
From:
Charles Robert Darwin
To:
Raphael Meldola
Date:
9 June [1871]
Source of text:
Oxford University Museum of Natural History (Hope Entomological Collections 1350: Hope/Westwood Archive, Darwin folder)
Summary:
Mentions the difficulties in explaining the separation of sexes and Carl Nägeli’s view that the sexes of plants were primordially distinct.
Has been experimenting for five or six years to demonstrate that the benefits of crossing are the same as those derived from a slight change of conditions.
Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
From:
Raphael Meldola
To:
Charles Robert Darwin
Date:
21 Jan [1872]
Source of text:
DAR 171: 117
Summary:
Discusses his paper on mimicry and natural selection [Land and Water 9 (1871): 321]. Believes natural selection tends to fix mimetic characters rigidly.
Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
From:
Charles Robert Darwin
To:
Raphael Meldola
Date:
23 Jan [1872]
Source of text:
Oxford University Museum of Natural History (Hope Entomological Collections 1350: Hope/Westwood Archive, Darwin folder)
Summary:
Discusses the problems of mimicry as related to natural selection; the general variability of colour as a character; and the conditions necessary for natural selection to fix firmly a character.
Encloses a Fritz Müller letter speculating that organisms respond to certain colours because of the prevalence of those colours in their environment.
Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
From:
Raphael Meldola
To:
Charles Robert Darwin
Date:
25 Jan 1872
Source of text:
DAR 171: 118
Summary:
Discusses the roles of natural and sexual selection in producing mimicry, and the problem of explaining the cause of the first mimetic variation; considers the ideas of A. R. Wallace and Fritz Müller on this problem.
Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
From:
Charles Robert Darwin
To:
Raphael Meldola
Date:
27 Jan [1872]
Source of text:
Oxford University Museum of Natural History (Hope Entomological Collections 1350: Hope/Westwood Archive, Darwin folder)
Summary:
Invites RM to keep some specimens as long as he wishes.
Recalls vaguely the mention of a butterfly species in which the male alone is mimetic.
Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
From:
Raphael Meldola
To:
Charles Robert Darwin
Date:
12 Mar 1872
Source of text:
DAR 171: 119
Summary:
Wishes to use some of Fritz Müller’s observations in his paper on mimicry.
CD’s reply and Huxley’s article ["Mr Darwin’s critics", Contemp. Rev. 18 (1871): 443–76] have answered all of Mivart’s objections to natural selection as applied to man.
Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
From:
Raphael Meldola
To:
Charles Robert Darwin
Date:
26 Mar 1872
Source of text:
DAR 89: 89–90b
Summary:
A. G. Butler has named the specimens sent by CD with Fritz Müller’s letter.
Sends several facts relating to sexual selection, mimicry, and hybrids.
Discusses the possibility that mimicked and mimicking forms have descended from originally allied forms and have diverged in structure but not in appearance.
Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
From:
Charles Robert Darwin
To:
Raphael Meldola
Date:
28 Mar 1872
Source of text:
Oxford University Museum of Natural History (Hope Entomological Collections 1350: Hope/Westwood Archive, Darwin folder)
Summary:
Feels it would be worth while but difficult to investigate mimicked and mimicking forms for structural similarities that would indicate a closer alliance in the past.
Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
From:
Raphael Meldola
To:
Charles Robert Darwin
Date:
24 Mar 1873
Source of text:
DAR 89: 83–4
Summary:
Gives some information on variation of ocelli between sexes in butterfly species.
Proposes publishing a series of papers on mimicry.
Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
From:
Charles Robert Darwin
To:
Raphael Meldola
Date:
26 Mar [1873]
Source of text:
Oxford University Museum of Natural History (Hope Entomological Collections 1350, Hope/Westwood Archive, Darwin folder)
Summary:
Thanks RM for note on ocelli.
Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
From:
Raphael Meldola
To:
Charles Robert Darwin
Date:
11 Aug 1873
Source of text:
DAR 171: 120
Summary:
Encloses a copy of his paper on mimicry [Proc. Zool. Soc. Lond. (1873): 153–61].
Asks whether large variations are more often limited to one sex than slight ones.
Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project