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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.
On papilionaceous flowers and CD’s theory that there are no eternal hermaphrodites. Connects this theory to absence of small-flowered legumes in New Zealand and the absence of small bees as pollinators.
CD has never doubted probability of Bering Strait land connection.
Family illness.
Has gone over to CD’s side on the fertilisation of clover in New Zealand by bees.
Returns books by Candolle and Robert Brown.
Six volumes of Candolle’s Prodromus confirm rule that small genera vary less than large. Labiatae an exception to rule.
General success of survey makes CD very concerned about sources of error. Wants to meet JDH for an important talk about big genera. Arranges meeting.
Fertilisation of clover by bees in New Zealand.
Uneasy about biggest genera and their varieties.
H. T. Buckle’s sophistry [History of civilisation in England (1857)].
Working on bees’ cells.
Botanical practice can confuse CD’s compilations. Many small genera would have been species had the whole natural order [family] been known.
JDH’s low opinion of Buckle;
high opinion of Mrs Farrer.
JDH has confirmed CD’s opinion on the affinities of species in great genera. Is looking at large genera in several local Floras to find the "range & commonness of varying species".
Has been "beyond measure interested" in the construction instincts of the hive-bee.
C. C. Babington agrees with JDH that botanists tend to note varieties more in large genera than in very small ones.
Heartened that tabulations of small and large genera done in different ways yield good results. JDH has done some tabulations but has not followed CD’s method of getting equal numbers of small and large genera.
JDH’s "objection" that small local genera do not vary and mundane ones do, is exactly CD’s point. Local floras useful to test idea that varieties are incipient species. Same genus in different countries cannot be lumped.
Summary of JDH’s objections to CD’s survey of floras and conclusion that large genera vary more than small.
Thanks JDH for his objections; will respond by sending fair copy of MS when written.
Continued objections to methods and conclusions of CD’s survey.
Writing section on large and small genera [for Natural selection, ch. 4].
Huxley supersedes Owen on parthenogenesis.
Buckle’s History of civilisation in England extremely interesting.
Asa Gray’s criticism of Buckle and his comments on large and small genera.
CD suspects glacial epoch immensely long. Rates of organic change too variable to make them a good measure of geological time.
Bees’ cells are a difficulty for theory.
Confidential revelation concerning W. F. Daniell.
Georg Hartung confirms CD’s supposition from flora of Azores that icebergs had been stranded there.
Reports that N. J. Andersson finds every European willow bar one is also American.
Has heard from David Livingstone and reports on his progress.
Sends MS on large and small genera.
Observed slave-making ants at Moor Park.
