Ɛpsilon

From Hermann Hoffmann   10 January 1876

Giessen.

10. Jan. 76

Sir!

With this you will receive a copÿ of mÿ latest researches on Species: zur Species-Frage.1

Allow me to congratulate you because of your “Insectivorous plants”. I consider the facts proving to evidence.

What is more to be wondered at—Nature in all her contrivances,—or man’s mind, able to investigate them to such extent?

Yours | H. Hoffmann. Prof.

P.S. | Mÿ note on a bug on Tilia (quoted in your Variation, last german edition) is regarding to Cimex (Lÿgaeus) apterus.2

The following maÿ be of some interest for ÿou.

1. Yellow cherries. A friend of mine had a tree of this varietÿ. Theÿ were (as seeminglÿ unripe) never attacked bÿ sparrows, whereas these fed greedilÿ upon red cherries just aside them. Perhaps theÿ took them for Mirabels, which they do not attack.3

2. A young dog (puppÿ) was sucked with a little chat bÿ a chat. He (a female) learned from his mother and sisters to wipe his face with the paws. When she give birth to young dogs, these showed the same behaviour.4

Yours | verÿ affectionate | H. Hoffmann. Prof.

CD annotations

1.1 With … attack. 7.4] crossed blue crayon
Top of letter: ‘Inheritance of [‘aqui’ del] habit acquired from others [‘when’ del]’ blue crayon
1
CD’s heavily annotated copy of Zur Speciesfrage (On the species question; Hoffmann 1875) is in the Darwin Library–CUL (see Marginalia 1: 384–5).
2
Hoffmann’s reference is to Descent, not Variation. Hoffmann sent CD comments on the first edition of Descent, including a description of Cimex apterus or Lygaeus apterus (now Pyrrhocoris apterus, the fire-bug), whose bright red coloration mimicked the buds of Tilia, in his letter of 17 April 1871 (Correspondence vol. 19). Tilia is the genus of lime trees. CD included Hoffmann’s information in Descent 2d ed., p. 281, but did not name the bug, and described it as pink and green rather than red. The reference appears in the third German edition of Descent (Carus trans. 1875, 1: 368–9).
3
The mirabelle plum (Prunus domestica subsp. syriaca) is a subspecies of plum bearing small yellow fruit.
4
CD had given several similar cases of dogs reared by cats in Descent 2d ed., p. 73.

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-10353,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-10353