From:
Alfred Newton
To:
Charles Robert Darwin
Date:
1 Mar 1867
Source of text:
DAR 84.1: 28–9
Summary:
Male dotterels take care of young and are less brilliantly coloured than females.
Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
From:
Edward Blyth
To:
Charles Robert Darwin
Date:
[2–30 Mar 1867]
Source of text:
DAR 160: 208
Summary:
Discussion of origin of domestic sheep races. Some comments on the yak and the wild ancestors of the llama and alpaca.
Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
From:
C. H. D. Buys Ballot
To:
Sir John Herschel
Date:
[2 March 1867]
Source of text:
RS:HS 5.132
Summary:
Is honored that JH should have noticed one of his articles. Quotes further articles, which may be of interest. Regarding JH's views on air and his own theories.
Contributor:
John Herschel Project
From:
Mary Somerville
To:
John Murray III
Date:
2 Mar 1867
Source of text:
162, MS 41131, NLS
Summary:
No summary available.
Contributor:
Brigitte Stenhouse
From:
Alfred Russel Wallace
To:
Charles Robert Darwin
Date:
2 Mar [1867]
Source of text:
DAR 85: A98
Summary:
Pleased that CD approves his idea about caterpillars.
Thinks CD is right about selection in butterflies, but still believes protective adaptation has kept down colours of females.
Cannot yet see action of natural selection in forming the races of man.
Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
From:
Erasmus Alvey Darwin
To:
Charles Robert Darwin
Date:
3 Mar 1867
Source of text:
DAR 105: B57–8
Summary:
He has promised Mark [coachman to R. W. Darwin and Susan] that CD will continue the payment of £20 a year after EAD’s death; the house is rent free.
Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
From:
Johann Friedrich Theodor (Fritz) Müller
To:
Charles Robert Darwin
Date:
4 Mar 1867
Source of text:
DAR 142: 102
Summary:
Reports observations on fertility of orchids he has self-pollinated and crossed with pollen of other species.
Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
From:
Charles Robert Darwin
To:
Alfred Newton
Date:
4 Mar [1867]
Source of text:
DAR 185: 89
Summary:
Thanks for information about the dotterel.
CD had ascertained by dissection that the female of the carrion-hawk of the Falkland Islands is very much brighter coloured than the male. Has inquired about its nidification. Mentions other instances of female birds that are brighter and more beautiful than the males and suggests causes for this anomaly.
Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
From:
Charles Robert Darwin
To:
Frederic William Farrar
Date:
5 Mar 1867
Source of text:
DAR 144: 41
Summary:
Much obliged for lecture [On some defects in public school education (1867)]. Would leave classics to those with zeal and taste for appreciation. Learned nothing at school except by reading and experimenting in chemistry.
Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
From:
James Joseph Sylvester
To:
Sir John Herschel
Date:
[5 March 1867]
Source of text:
RS:HS 17.164
Summary:
Sends JH proceedings of Mathematical Society of London and asks JH to join.
Contributor:
John Herschel Project
From:
Sir John Herschel
To:
Jacques Babinet
Date:
[5 March 1867]
Source of text:
RS:HS 19.158
Summary:
No mention of Emmanuel Liais's L'espace céleste in English journals. Contact London publishers to find translator for it. Alexander Herschel is now professor of natural philosophy at Andersonian Institution in Glasgow. Hopes JB's elegant method of measuring gravity by torsion will not die before being put into practice.
Contributor:
John Herschel Project
From:
Charles Robert Darwin
To:
William Bernhard Tegetmeier
Date:
5 Mar [1867]
Source of text:
Archives of the New York Botanical Garden (Charles Finney Cox Collection)
Summary:
Asks whether WBT can carry out poultry mating experiments for him.
Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
From:
Charles Robert Darwin
To:
George Robert Waterhouse
Date:
5 Mar [1867?]
Source of text:
Natural History Museum, Library and Archives (Archives DF PAL/100/9/22)
Summary:
Wishes to know the correct name for the British Museum’s specimen of an Abyssinian wolf described by Wilhelm Rueppell, Neue Wirbelthiere zu der Fauna von Abyssinien [1835–40] .
Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
From:
John Traherne Moggridge
To:
Charles Robert Darwin
Date:
6 Mar [1867]
Source of text:
DAR 109: A90–1, DAR 111: B47
Summary:
Observations on Ophrys plants and Thymus vulgaris. Encloses sketch of different forms of T. vulgaris [see Forms of flowers, p. 302].
Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
From:
Frederic William Farrar
To:
Charles Robert Darwin
Date:
7 Mar [1867]
Source of text:
DAR 164: 38
Summary:
On improving the educational system.
Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
From:
Sir John Herschel
To:
Jacques Babinet
Date:
[7 March 1867]
Source of text:
RS:HS 24.190
Summary:
Not willing to be involved in translation of French work on astronomy [see JB's 1867-2].
Contributor:
John Herschel Project
From:
Charles Robert Darwin
To:
Alfred Russel Wallace
Date:
7 Mar [1867]
Source of text:
The British Library (Add 46434 ff. 20–20v)
Summary:
Grateful for addresses of informants, especially that of Rajah James Brooke.
Dispatch of queries on expression. Answers will make interesting appendix to his "Essay on man" [Descent].
Protective adaptation of female butterflies believed probable.
Believes in sexual selection as applied to man.
Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
From:
Francis Trevelyan (Frank) Buckland
To:
Charles Robert Darwin
Date:
9 Mar 1867
Source of text:
DAR 160: 362
Summary:
Has been hunting for an otter-hound for CD.
Hopes CD will visit his museum at the Horticultural [Society].
Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
From:
Sir John Herschel
To:
Mary Baldwin
Date:
[10 March 1867]
Source of text:
TxU:H/L-0076 & L-0075; Reel 1054
Summary:
Gives more reasons for objecting to MB, 80 years old, leaving Stubbington and moving to Anstey [see JH's 1867-2-10].
Contributor:
John Herschel Project
From:
Henry Walter Bates
To:
Charles Robert Darwin
Date:
11 Mar 1867
Source of text:
DAR 82: A36–9, A46–7
Summary:
Sexual ornamentation of insects: coloration of Epicalia genus [of tropical S. American butterflies];
horned genera of lamellicorn beetles [see Descent 1: 370, 388].
Wallace brought CD’s question about gay-coloured caterpillars before the Entomological Society. Members now seeking explanations.
Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
