Sends a pamphlet [not identified] in which he applies the principle of natural selection to the working of legislative institutions.
Showing 41–60 of 67 items
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.
Sends a pamphlet [not identified] in which he applies the principle of natural selection to the working of legislative institutions.
Requests a prescribed physic [not specified].
Thanks recipient for memoir on fossil plants of the Devonian and Upper Silurian.
Thanks LHM for his work on consanguinity. [See 7299].
Describes the occurrence of earthworms and the signs of earthworm activity in the neighbourhood.
Gives results of probing worm-holes with wire.
Discusses his paper on mimicry and natural selection [Land and Water 9 (1871): 321]. Believes natural selection tends to fix mimetic characters rigidly.
Thanks for observations on angles of worm-holes on slopes. William Darwin is observing at Stonehenge. She is worth her weight in gold.
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.
His rabbits have lost their patches and are grey.
Has FG seen William Crookes [spiritualist]?
Discusses earthworm activity observed in old ploughed fields.
Louis Agassiz is going on a voyage to the Falklands, and BJS wonders whether it is worth while telling him of the Gallegos fossil bed so that he can investigate.
William [Hooker] is in first division of matriculation list of London University.
Other family news.
No news on Ayrton affair. Ayrton has taken staff appointments out of JDH’s hands.
Asks whether CD knows about Zizania aquatica – can hardly believe it is an annual.
Wants references to the work of Julius von Haast and James Hector on New Zealand glaciers, which CD mentions in the Origin [6th ed., p. 335].
Suggests BJS write to Louis Agassiz about his [fossil mammal?] specimens but doubts that he will have time to do the work. Regrets they were ignored at the Royal College of Surgeons; thinks Owen neglected many things because he was overworked.
Discusses role of orbicular muscle and distended veins in eye in secretion of tears. Asks WB’s opinion.
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.
Heartily glad about Willy.
Has never had Zizania.
Still has Leersia. He cannot make the beast produce.
What slow coaches the Ministers are about the Ayrton affair.
Reminisces on the evening he, B. J. Sulivan, and J. C. Wickham from the Beagle spent with CD, nearly ten years ago.
Hopes the mission at Tierra del Fuego will not "improve" the people to extinction.
Gives information on recent editions of Lyell’s works.