Promises to send coral specimens.
Showing 1–20 of 41 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.
Promises to send coral specimens.
Asks GHKT about eyes of screaming elephants.
CD thanks JBI for contribution to Down school.
George [Darwin] has passed his examination at Cambridge;
Henrietta has been poorly.
Thanks JMH for his congratulations.
Recalls gift of microscope [from JMH in 1831]. [See 99].
Asks about proportions of male to female insects.
CD is much interested in FB’s remarks in Land and Water on the apparent excess of male trout over females and asks for further information on other fish, birds, and domestic quadrupeds.
Asks whether mane in male of Macacus silenus protects it from bites or is merely ornamental.
CD thanks BJS for photographs of Jemmy [Button]’s son
and for the curious case about stallions, which leads him to ask whether BJS has observed that horses when fighting try especially to bite each other’s necks.
Does he know anything about male seals fighting?
Bird specimens collected by Capt. P. P. King eventually went to British Museum, but many specimens were incorrectly marked.
CD sends thanks for information; he will write to Mr Bush.
In relation to the fecundation of ova CD adds that he has compared the use of very little pollen against an immense supply; found no difference in number or weight of seeds or in their germination.
Thanks WS for information about moss roses and the Le Compte family.
Mentions WS’s recent papers on inheritance [Brit. & Foreign Med.-Chirurg. Rev. (1867)].
Discusses beaks and relative numbers of the sexes of goldfinches.
Comments on sexual selection among butterflies.
Mentions Kerguelen moth collected by Hooker.
Comments on JJW’s observations on coloured birds.
The second volume of Lyell’s [Principles, 10th ed.] gives a "fair history of the progress of opinion on Species".
Pleased by allusion to Pangenesis: "an untried hypothesis is always dangerous ground".
Looks forward to chapter on domestication and on man.
CD asks about HD’s observation of sexual call of Coleoptera.
Also comments on statements by collectors that they breed more females than males from caterpillars. CD had thought this might be accounted for by the collection of largest and finest caterpillars, but Alexander Wallace says the collectors take large and small equally. Does HD agree with Wallace?
Sends his niece’s [Lucy Wedgwood] observations on worms, vouches for her accuracy, and suggests the piece be inserted in Gardeners’ Chronicle [see "Worms", Gard. Chron. (1868): 324].
Adds his thanks for a "very kind review" of his book [Variation, Gard. Chron. (1868): 124].
CD thanks JJW for the mine of information his last "ten!" letters contain. Comments on sexual display of pheasants and colour preferences of pigeons.
Asks about hens that pair earliest in spring and about possible existence of unpaired birds.
Thanks JJW for his great assistance.
Discusses sexual selection in birds.
Sends queries on secondary sexual characteristics of birds.
Has often marvelled at the different growth of the flowering and creeping branches of ivy.
GHKT should not take more trouble about human expression. Discusses contraction of orbicular muscles in elephants.
Asks about colour of first plumage of breeds of Ceylon fowls in which hens alone are coloured.
Comments on DP’s paper on man ["Transmutation of man according to the Darwinian theory" (n.d.)].
Thanks for note about enlarged left arm of Gelasimus.