Showing 21–38 of 38 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.
Has rewritten paper on leaf arrangement after criticism by Royal Society referees. Has found new factor influencing leaf arrangement, i.e., spontaneous variability in the number of vertical leaf-ranks.
Wishes CD could publish Origin with footnotes.
Increases in bird populations: starlings are increasing, but AN cannot give reason; mistletoe-thrush increasing but not ousting song-thrush. Doubts trustworthiness of [George?] Edwards, CD’s authority in Origin on this matter [see Origin, 6th ed., p. 59].
AN opposed to bird protection legislation to prohibit egging. Argues egging does not decrease number of birds.
Can give no definite information. Believes severe winters are by far the most important check on numbers of birds; the destruction of eggs is of subordinate importance.
Will be out of town, so he cannot vote for Henry Parker.
CD ought to come to see his Cetiosaurus, of which he draws a likeness.
Asks for a reference for Charles Pearson, who has applied to be appointed an agent for the Company.
Testifies to the trustworthiness of Charles Pearson.
Proposal to collect all of CD’s works in a German edition. Asks CD’s opinion and suggests an outline of volumes.
Lists German sales of various volumes.
Thanks CD for his opinion on egging. Despite the intensity of the practice sufficient eggs always remain to carry on the breed.
Reports the balloting [for Henry Parker at the Athenaeum?] went off just right.
Relates the case of a woman from the Caucasus whose hair would frequently stand on end and who later went insane.
Comments on JS’s lecture on evolution ["Address on evolution", Aberdeen Daily Free Press 24 Feb 1874].
"Half an answer" to CD’s query on visit of Sphinx to Hedychium gardnerianum.
Business affairs and family ill health keep him busy.
G. J. Allman will succeed Bentham as President of Linnean Society. Busk has refused.
Huxley is well.
JDH has indoctrinated Sir Stafford Northcote with his merits.
Lyell frail.
Old J. E. Gray goes on publishing.
"Is not [Thomas] Belt splendid!"
Thanks for information about Hedychium. Hopes wings of Sphinx will be found covered with pollen for that will be a fine bit of prophecy from the structure of a flower to special and new means of fertilisation.
Has been at Descent so hard he has done nothing, not even H. Spencer’s answer.
Has not yet read Croll ["Ocean currents", London Edinburgh & Dublin Philos. Mag. 47 (1874): 94–122, 168–90].
Has heard nothing about Carter and Eozoon. Eozoon, he infers, is done for.
Has read Belt [The naturalist in Nicaragua (1874)]: best of all natural history travel books.
Has written to Fritz Müller about leaf-carrying ants.
Hopes to resume work on Drosera.
Etty [Henrietta Litchfield] is helping with Coral reefs [2d ed.]; will JDH lend her his copy?
On EA’s persecution by new government for liberal–republican position of his Revues; threat to remove him from Faculté de Droit, unless he renounces relations with Revues or changes their politics.
Has reviewed CD’s Orchids.
His note on brain [in man and apes for 2d ed. of Descent] nearly finished.
Has heard nothing about Dohrn.
THH has been invited to lecture in America.
FEA has expressed CD’s views on the moral sense with remarkable clearness and correctness; his eulogy is magnificent ["Darwin’s theory of conscience and its relation to scientific ethics", Index 12 Mar 1874]. Cannot give a judgment on the essay because he has had "no practice in following abstract and abstruse reasoning".
CD does not see how morality can be "objective and universal". No one would call the maternal bond in lower animals a "moral obligation". When a social animal "becomes in some slight incipient degree" a moral creature "capable of approving or disapproving of its own conduct" do not such obligations remain of a so-called instinctive nature rather than becoming at once moral obligations?
Sends results of experiments on digestion. Encloses two sets of notes: "Experiments on the digestibility of certain preparations sent by Mr Darwin" and "Note for Mr Darwin" [marked by CD for insertion in ch. 6 of Insectivorous plants].