Discusses possibility of publishing the zoology of the voyage of the Beagle. Will need help from more able naturalists. Would LJ object to describing the fishes for such a work rather than for scientific journals? Is working on his Beagle journal.
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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.
Discusses possibility of publishing the zoology of the voyage of the Beagle. Will need help from more able naturalists. Would LJ object to describing the fishes for such a work rather than for scientific journals? Is working on his Beagle journal.
CD is glad LJ is describing the fishes [for Zoology]; would not have permitted J. E. Gray to describe them. New species will be lithographed.
Suggests books; offers coloured drawings made by artist on Beagle voyage.
Is sorry the fish [for Zoology] give LJ so much trouble. Urges him not to give up. Describes publication plan of Zoology.
Discusses details of LJ’s part of Zoology [Fish].
CD is working hard on Coral reefs.
Informs LJ that Yarrell has recommended B. W. Hawkins to do the plates [for Fish]. Discusses arrangements to be made, number of plates, etc. Answers LJ’s questions about several specimens.
Discusses details of arrangements for descriptions and engravings [for Fish].
Details regarding Fish. CD is astonished how many new things LJ has found: "four new genera is something".
Has been unwell. Publication of two numbers [of Zoology] has been delayed. Thought first Fish number good.
Health is improved, but would do anything to get strong again. Is consulting his father; will return to London soon to see B. W. Hawkins.
Will send MS [of Fish, no. 2] to the printer, and be there when LJ comes.
LJ has had a letter from R. T. Lowe in Madeira who thinks Scorpaena histrio, a species from Galapagos described in no. 1 [of Fish], is the same as the one in the Atlantic and Mediterranean. LJ does not think it is possible.
Doctors predict it will take years for CD’s constitution to recover.
Details regarding volume on Fish.
Sends notes on Diodon.
Must give up attending Geological Society evening meetings; knocks him up.
CD is pleased with LJ’s introduction [to Fish]. He rejoices that he persuaded LJ to undertake this work.
Glad to hear that LJ will repeat his notes to Gilbert White’s [Natural history of] Selborne [1843] in a separate work.
Critical of G. R. Gray’s attaching his own name to Furnarius cunicularius [in Birds, pp. 65–6]. Strickland’s nomenclature laws are needed to check egoism.
Is sending fish skins and bottles off to Cambridge Philosophical Society.
Fish numbers [of Zoology], now finished, give CD satisfaction when he doubts whether he ought to have applied for Government money.
Wishes Thomas Bell would finish his part [Reptiles].
CD has just corrected last page of index of Coral reefs.
Asks whether LJ can throw light on this subject: "What are the checks and what the periods of life by which the increase of any given species is limited?" CD has been driven to conclude that species are mutable; allied species are co-descendants from common stocks.
On checks to increase of species and the observations which led him to regard species as mutable in form. Would welcome "at some future time" LJ’s criticism of the "sketch" of his conclusions.
Discusses checks on growth of species population; use of term "mutation" in his species theory. His belief in species mutability.
Looks forward to LJ’s volume [Observations in natural history (1846)].
Observations on what the world would call trifling points in natural history are always very interesting to him. Deplores their absence in foreign periodicals.
Is slaving away to finish S. American geology.
Comments on LJ’s Observations [in natural history (1846)].
Discusses variation among British birds, and the conflicting treatment of bird species by C. W. L. Gloger and C. L. Brehm.
Describes collecting incident of his student days involving Carabus.
Mentions squirrels eating insects.
Astonished to hear of terrestrial Planaria.
Comments on BAAS meeting in Southampton.