Text Online
From:
Ferdinand von Mueller
To:
Joseph Hooker
Date:
14 June 1870
Source of text:
RBG Kew, Kew correspondence, Australia, Mueller, 1858-70, f. 434
Summary:
No summary available.
Contributor:
Correspondence of Ferdinand von Mueller Project
No summary available.
Sends maps of U. S. Far West for CD to follow explorations.
Thanks for RAvK’s work [Anatomisch-systematische Beschreibung der Alcyonarien, pt 1, Die Pennatuliden (1870)].
Asks whether muscles to quills of porcupine are striped. Are they homologous to muscles of ordinary hairs? Could unstriped muscles develop into striped?
Asks about birds erecting feathers when enraged or frightened. Interested in examples of expression in birds and animals.
Tells of the sheldrake dancing on tidal sands to make worms come out.
Orange-tip butterfly at rest imitates a flower.
The argus pheasant cannot be explained by natural selection.
When CD comes to London in ten days, he will "immediately call on you and explain why I cannot at once answer your question".