Showing 181–200 of 5996 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.
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".
French translation of Orchids is published.
Argus pheasant.
Encloses a copy of a letter he has written to a French geologist. In it he raises objections to evolutionary theory:
why are corals inadequately represented in the fossil record?
How can one explain the widespread appearance and then disappearance of groups like the trilobites?
If Mollusca and Articulata have a common ancestor, why are not ancient forms more akin than present ones?
Will send CD a deerhound puppy.
Reaffirms his statement that dogs in breeding form decided preferences toward each other, based on size, colour, or character.
Asks for figures of embryos by A. Ecker and T. L. W. Bischoff to copy [for Descent, ch. 1].
Comments on translation of FCD’s paper ["On the action of the eyelids", Arch. Med. 5 (1870): 20–38].
Speculates that closing eyelids may protect eyes from vibrations.
Discusses publication of Expression.
Reports "shindy" at Oxford over persons proposed for doctorate. Pusey assented to CD’s being "doctored" to keep out seven worse devils.
Copies of the French translation of Orchids were sent to C. V. Naudin, Quatrefages de Bréau, and Charles Martins at CD’s request and to Duchartre, Brongniart, Baillon, Lecoq, Godron, and Alphonse de Candolle on Rérolle’s initiative.
No summary available.
Comments on new edition of EH’s book [Natürliche Schöpfungsgeschichte, 2d ed. (1870)].
Mentions his own book [Descent].
Visit by Kölliker.
Sends drawings of the foot of chicken showing swimming membrane.
Publication Committee of Zoological Society has granted CD use of woodblock from the Society’s Proceedings.
Two, perhaps all three, doe [rabbits] are sterile after the transfusions; will try another method.
Sets a time for CD to call.
Mentions passage on gestures in EBT’s Early history of mankind [1865].
Asks Tylor whether the deaf and dumb use opposite signs for objects, qualities, etc., of an opposite nature.
Thanks for Trox beetles which have been forwarded [to London], but unfortunately CD has no microscope here. Is "in despair how to observe them … they sham dead" and are not inclined to stridulate.
