General success of survey makes CD very concerned about sources of error. Wants to meet JDH for an important talk about big genera. Arranges meeting.
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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.
General success of survey makes CD very concerned about sources of error. Wants to meet JDH for an important talk about big genera. Arranges meeting.
Returns books by Candolle and Robert Brown.
Six volumes of Candolle’s Prodromus confirm rule that small genera vary less than large. Labiatae an exception to rule.
Bees’ cells. Observations on Osmia atricapilla.
Describes some species of fauna peculiar to Fernando Po. The ocean currents make it unlikely that animals have been floated to the little islands [off the west coast of Africa].
Writes of domestic matters
and asks WED to observe cart-horses for traces of dark stripes on spine and cross-stripes on shoulder.
GRW’s observations of and ideas on bees’ and wasps’ cells.
CD and J. D. Hooker have differed on the following question and agreed to ask several botanists: would a good botanist describing a local flora record varieties as readily in large as in small genera?
Gives some observations on birds; has forwarded a box of specimens.
Fertilisation of clover by bees in New Zealand.
Uneasy about biggest genera and their varieties.
H. T. Buckle’s sophistry [History of civilisation in England (1857)].
Working on bees’ cells.
Believes that botanists tend to mark more varieties in large than in small genera, but notes that where many varieties of a species exist these varieties may well be passed over, whereas similar varieties of another species which are fewer in number may well be recorded.
Botanical practice can confuse CD’s compilations. Many small genera would have been species had the whole natural order [family] been known.
JDH’s low opinion of Buckle;
high opinion of Mrs Farrer.
Identifies an ant described by CD and discusses the predatory habits of Formica sanguinea.
Describes some wasps’ nests.
CD intends to enter WED at Christ’s College.
Thanks him for inquiries made about horses.
JDH has confirmed CD’s opinion on the affinities of species in great genera. Is looking at large genera in several local Floras to find the "range & commonness of varying species".
Has been "beyond measure interested" in the construction instincts of the hive-bee.