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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.
CD has been experimenting on the fertility of peloric flowers, with the forlorn hope of illustrating sterility of hybrids; seeks further plants or seeds.
Has not found insects visiting Epipactis palustris either at night or in the day.
Reality of hybrid plants and birds in nature is controversial.
Has misplaced CD’s forwarding address.
Lenny [Leonard Darwin]’s illness.
Polymorphism in valerian and Lythrum salicaria.
Leonard’s illness.
Polymorphism in valerian and Erythraea.
JDH’s trip to Switzerland with his wife.
Has seen Oswald Heer’s fossils, including a leaf, apparently dicotyledonous, from the Lower Lias in Jura.
Value of insect and crustacean fossils for systematic determination.
JDH "impressed with identity of physical features and what wonderful analogy of biological [features] between Alps and Himalayas".
Sends additional notes.
Thanks for answers to CD’s questions; would appreciate any new information on similarity of moths of distinct races.
CD has been "atrociously abused by religious countrymen, but it does not hurt except when it comes from an old friend like Prof. Owen".
Wishes French translator of Origin had known more natural history.
Relates death of H. G. Bronn.
Discusses publication of German edition of Orchids [1862].
Will be sending information on peloric plants from his father [William Masters] soon.
Adaptations of orchid flowers. Believes the structure of all irregular flowers is adaptation to insect fertilisation.
Linum grandiflorum distinguishes its own pollen so that when placed on stigma of same flower the pollen-tube is not even exserted.
Sends observations on Valeriana officinalis.
Offers to translate Orchids, since H. G. Bronn has died.
Is obliged for information concerning differences in the bees of Britain. Relates case of the Jamaican bees which were introduced long ago and have remained the same in size and character except that the diameter of the cells is larger, the wax tougher, and the walls of the hive thicker.
Observations on Platanthera.
Possibility of trimorphism in Mertensia.
Continues breeding guinea-pigs to test effects of warmth on gestation period. Concludes period is ten weeks and warmth has no influence. Offers CD the specimens.
Awaits Variation.
Thanks for Hildebrand’s offer to translate Orchids into German, but H. G. Bronn had finished his translation before his death (Bronn trans. 1862). Has not yet received Hildebrand’s work on the distribution of coniferous trees (Hildebrand 1861). Asks that his compliments be presented to L. C. Treviranus.
Encloses stamps for Leonard Darwin.
Confesses to having made a gross blunder with reference to the size of bee cells in West Indian combs [see 3658a].
AG’s orchid observations are admirable.
Owen has lectured on birds’ descending from one form.
French criticism of CD’s Primula paper.
Only AG has seen that Orchids was "a ""flank movement"" on the enemy".