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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.
Only 270 copies of Movement in plants remain. Suggests printing another 250 and then breaking up type. If CD agrees, has he any corrections?
Sends a copy of Earthworms.
Wishes to draw up a new will; outlines the changes to be made in the provisions.
Hooker would be very glad to see the mountain plants Fd’AF has collected.
Hooker says huge cypress trunks have been found buried in the ground [in the Azores]; the site needs to be described and investigated. CD suggests collecting earth from same bed to see whether any seeds have remained viable.
Observed a beetle carrying a long worm.
Sending some Hudson’s Bay mosquitoes because of a letter of CD’s quoted in Evening Standard, 5 Sept 1881.
Discusses financial affairs.
Drafting new will as CD requested.
Sends preserved pitchers and figure of Dischidia rafflesiana, a rare plant from East Bengal, which GK and the late John Scott had tried in vain to cultivate.
JBI’s observations on bees and wasps. The hexagonal cells made by solitary queen wasps do not fit explanation in Origin.
Quotes from a Fritz Müller letter of 9 Aug supporting CD’s views that leaves position themselves at night so as to minimise heat loss by radiation. It is a new fact to CD that leaves take different positions at different seasons.
CD interested in JBI’s observations of behaviour of bees. Finds his criticism about hexagonal cells made by queen wasps a good one. Cannot remember how he got out of the difficulty.
His book on worms to be published soon.
E. A. Darwin has died after short illness.
A circular letter on the distribution of his money at death and the division ofErasmus’ estate.
Nathan Hubbersty [of Cambridge days] is very ill.
Comte [de Paris] will have plants next summer.
Arruda Furtado will send his mountain plants from Azores.
Did not intend his last letter as criticism. Is sure CD would not "wriggle out" of a difficulty if he had observed it.
Sends CD a wasps’ nest.
Asks for a testimonial from CD to enable him to get an adequate Treasury pension. An accident at work has killed his son and injured him to such an extent that he must resign his appointment.
No frogs or toads are able to live in completely closed holes. Cites experiment by William Buckland.
Details of new will. 12/74ths to each son and 7/74ths to each daughter.
Division of CW’s share [of E. A. Darwin’s estate]. Investment advice.
Recounts his memories of their mother and of her death. Remembers "her black velvet gown and her work table and the death scene", but cannot remember her face. Remembers that Caroline "always acted like a mother" to him and Catherine.
Hopes Anthony Rich will keep to his intention of leaving his fortune to CD, despite CD’s increased wealth.
His BAAS address at York in Nature ["The rise and progress of palaeontology" 24 (1881): 452–5].