From:
Charles Robert Darwin
To:
William Walmisley Baxter
Date:
[after 4 Dec 1872]
Source of text:
DAR 249: 70
Summary:
Thanks for information about the Atropia.
Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
Showing 1–2 of 2 items
Thanks for information about the Atropia.
If decapod does not pass through zoea stage, is this acceleration? If hypothetical adult retained zoea characters, would this be retardation? Believes obliteration of growth stages frequently due to natural selection. Most interesting points in AH’s letter deal with senile characters. CD attributes them to laws of growth not selection. Explains degraded characters as result of readaptation to simpler conditions. Believes no innate tendency to progressive development exists.
Hopes AH visits F. Hilgendorf’s famous deposit [at Steinheim]. A. Weismann [Einfluss der Isolierung (1872)] makes good use of Hilgendorf’s observations.