From:
Edwards Crisp
To:
Charles Robert Darwin
Date:
4 Apr 1857
Source of text:
DAR 205.2: 221
Summary:
Reports on wheat in the stomach of fish he caught.
Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
From:
Charles Robert Darwin
To:
James Dwight Dana
Date:
5 Apr [1857]
Source of text:
Yale University Library: Manuscripts and Archives (Dana Family Papers (MS 164) Series 1, Box 2, folder 44)
Summary:
Asks whether Crustacea from temperate parts of the Southern Hemisphere are more strongly analogous to those in same latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere than are Arctic to Antarctic Crustacea.
Discusses astonishing finds of mammalian and reptilian remains in Purbeck beds; notes reactions of Lyell.
Has doubts about Richard Owen’s recent classification of mammals [J. Proc. Linn. Soc. Lond. (Zool.) 2 (1858): 1–37].
Works away [on Natural selection].
Asa Gray has given valuable assistance.
Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
From:
Charles Robert Darwin
To:
Joseph Dalton Hooker
Date:
8 Apr [1857]
Source of text:
DAR 114: 191
Summary:
Independence of variation from climate shown by several plant genera; CD asks for confirmation.
Progressing with book [Natural selection].
Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
From:
Charles Robert Darwin
To:
William Sharpey
Date:
9 Apr [1857]
Source of text:
DAR 249: 128 (photocopy)
Summary:
Recommendations of books of general interest [for the Royal Society library]. These include [Louis] Agassiz’s works, [William] McGillivray’s [History of] British birds, and David Low’s [On the domesticated animals of the British Islands].
Comments on current candidates for the Royal Society.
Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
From:
Joseph Dalton Hooker
To:
Charles Robert Darwin
Date:
[11 Apr 1857]
Source of text:
DAR 104: 198–201
Summary:
JDH cites W. H. Harvey’s observations on Fucus and David Don’s on Juncus as examples of variations that are independent of climate. There are many such cases. Gives his working scheme for categorising variation.
Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
From:
Charles Robert Darwin
To:
Joseph Dalton Hooker
Date:
12 Apr [1857]
Source of text:
DAR 114: 192
Summary:
Thanks JDH for response on variation. Studying variations that seem correlated with environment, e.g., north vs south, ascending mountains.
CD’s weed garden: observations on slugs killing seedlings.
Seed-salting. One-seventh of the plants of any country could be transported 924 miles by sea and would germinate.
Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
From:
Thomas Vernon Wollaston
To:
Charles Robert Darwin
Date:
[12 Apr 1857]
Source of text:
DAR 181: 139
Summary:
Lists groups of insects absent from the Madeiran fauna.
Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
From:
Charles Robert Darwin
To:
Charles Lyell, 1st baronet
Date:
13 Apr [1857]
Source of text:
The University of Edinburgh Centre for Research Collections (Gen.109/702)
Summary:
CD returns a letter from Wollaston.
Although opposed to the Forbesian doctrine [of continental extension] as a general rule, CD would have no objection to its being proved in some cases. Does not think Wollaston has proved it; nor can anyone until more is known about the means of distribution of insects – but the identity of the two faunas is certainly interesting.
His health is very poor and his "everlasting species-Book" quite overwhelms him with work. It is beyond his powers, but he hopes to live to finish it.
Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
From:
George Robert Waterhouse
To:
Charles Robert Darwin
Date:
14 Apr 1857
Source of text:
DAR 181: 21
Summary:
Has found no reference to construction of bees’ cells in works referred to by CD. Describes cell of Osmia atricapilla. Hive-bees’ cell was described at Entomological Society.
Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
From:
Charles Robert Darwin
To:
Laurence Edmondston
Date:
19 Apr [1857]
Source of text:
L. D. Edmondston (private collection)
Summary:
Thanks for pigeon.
Are there Shetland birds chequered with black marks, as Carl Julian Graba states are in Faeroes [Reise nach Färö (1830)] and Col. King in the Hebrides?
Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
From:
James Tenant
To:
Charles Robert Darwin
Date:
23 Apr 1857
Source of text:
DAR 205.2: 258
Summary:
Fish will take both sorts of seeds sent by CD, but will not take oats.
Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
From:
James Dwight Dana
To:
Charles Robert Darwin
Date:
27 Apr 1857
Source of text:
DAR 162: 39
Summary:
In reply to CD’s query [see 2072], JDD describes what little is known about the crustacea of the Antarctic and southern lands.
Knows of no species of the cold temperate south identical with those of the cold temperate north.
Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
From:
Charles Robert Darwin
To:
Philip Henry Gosse
Date:
27 Apr [1857]
Source of text:
Leeds University Library Special Collections (Brotherton Collection: Gosse Correspondence)
Summary:
Asks PHG to conduct an experiment to see if young littoral molluscs will cling to a duck’s foot – CD seeks to explain distribution of molluscs without adopting E. Forbes’s [continental extension] theory.
Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
From:
Charles Robert Darwin
To:
Joseph Dalton Hooker
Date:
[29 Apr 1857]
Source of text:
DAR 114: 194
Summary:
Curative power of hydropathy.
General hairiness of alpine plants questioned: direct environmental effect.
CD has long felt JDH is too hard on bad observers.
Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
From:
Charles Robert Darwin
To:
William Darwin Fox
Date:
[30 Apr 1857]
Source of text:
Christ’s College Library, Cambridge (MS 53 Fox 103)
Summary:
His impressions of the hydropathic establishment and E. W. Lane. Is convinced the only thing for "chronic cases" is the water-cure.
Asks if WDF knows of any breed of pig that originated or was modified by a cross with a Chinese or Neapolitan pig, and whether the crossbreed bred true.
Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project