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.
Discusses EM’s book [Die Dolomit-Riffe von Südtirol und Venetien (1878–9)]. Pleased by EM’s views of geological chronology based on evolution. Thinks distribution of land and sea formerly very different. New genera and families may have been developed on isolated tracks and migrated.
Cactus and Cycas seedlings: observations and queries.
Working hard on plant movements.
Comments on achenia of Pumilio argyrolepis.
Sends letter and seeds from [F. J. Cohn].
Is working too hard.
Feels WHK’s views on the origin of tumbling in pigeons are very likely correct.
Pleased with CD’s praise of his work. He agrees with CD that intermediate marine fossils are rare in the same bed. The difficulty is overcome by extensive search of "isotopic" fauna in different beds of the same "isotopic" region.
Suggests sensitive plants that close at night would be protected from nocturnal-feeding snails. JIR’s brother in India says snails occur there in abundance.
Sends article on "Evolution" [Encyclopaedia Britannica, 9th ed.]. CD will be interested in Lamarck’s opinions in 1794.
Is working on crayfish and their distribution.
Report of an "eight legged horse" considered to be an example of reversion.
JDH’s scheme for lowering F.R.S. fees by creating a fund through membership subscription.
Thanks for evolution article; would like to know what made Lamarck "change his front" so completely.
Comments on publication of his Atlas der Botanik [1878]. Discusses possible English edition. Draws CD’s attention to plates of Drosera in Atlas. Mentions contribution offered by Hermann Müller, and support by German professors of botany.
Has received interesting essay from August Weismann on sexual selection in daphnoids [“Schmuckfarben der Daphnoiden”, Z. Wiss. Zool. (1878)].
Would like to read Weismann’s essay on Daphnidae.
Fritz Müller’s paper on odours emitted by butterflies was read at last Entomological Society meeting.
Thanks AD-P for his magnificent Atlas; hopes it will find an English publisher. Suggests Longman & Co.
Sends two pages from MS chapter on instinct. Presumes it is too late for chapter to be of use to GJR.
After train ride Baby [Bernard Richard Meirion Darwin] calls every vehicle "boo boo".
Has been observing the movements of leaves and cotyledons; sleep movements are exaggerated circumnutation. Reports some odd observations on movement in Oxalis species.
Comments on positive response to publication [of Atlas]. CD’s approval will help make an English edition possible. Rejects suggestion that CD should subscribe.
Thanks for permission to use CD’s observations on instinct. Would like to use CD’s MS chapter in preparing forthcoming book [Mental evolution in animals (1883)].
Movements of cotyledons of Oxalis.
Francis Darwin at Würzburg with Julius Sachs.