To Ernst Krause   25 March 1877

Down, | Beckenham, Kent. | Railway Station | Orpington. S.E.R.

Mar 25. 1877

Dear Sir,

I received only yesterday your letter dated Mar 11.1 I thank you cordially for your very kind expressions towards me, but your estimation of my scientific work is much too high. It would give me pleasure to aid your new Journal; but I really have at present nothing to say which is worth printing. I have been so accustomed to collect materials for books instead of for detached papers that it is a very rare event for me to write anything in a Journal.2 But I will not forget your wish, should any fitting occasion arise. I have spoken to my son Francis who may hereafter be able to communicate an abstract of new observations made by him.3

I will suggest one point which you as Editor will perhaps find an opportunity of urging on your readers, & which seems to me of paramount importance with respect to the descent theory,—namely the investigation of the causes of variability. Why for instance are the wild cattle which roam over the Pampas uniformly coloured, whereas as soon as they are half domesticated, they are said by Azara to change colour; & so in endless other cases.

We want to know what is the nature of the change in the environment which induces variability in each particular instance, & why one part of the organisation is affected more than another; though it seems hopeless at present to attempt solving this latter problem. I cannot but think that light might be thrown on this difficult subject by experiments & observations made on freshly domesticated animals & cultivated plants.4

With all good wishes for the success of your Journal, I remain, | dear Sir | Yours faithfully | Charles Darwin

P.S. | I beg leave to thank you for your kind present of your ‘Werden und Vergehen’ & for the article on Insectivorous Plants both of which are new to me5

LS

2
A German translation of CD’s essay ‘A biographical sketch of an infant’ (Mind 2 (1877): 285–94) was simultaneously published in Kosmos 1 (1877): 367–76. German translations of CD’s short articles ‘Fertility of hybrids from the common and Chinese goose’, ‘The sexual colours of certain butterflies’, ‘Inheritance’, and ‘The parasitic habits of Molothrus’ (Nature, 1 January 1880, p. 207, 8 January 1880, p. 237, 21 July 1881, p. 257, 17 November 1881, pp. 51–2) appeared in Kosmos 7 (1880): 72–74, 77–8; 9 (1881): 458–9; 10 (1881–2): 301–2.
3
In 1881, Francis Darwin published ‘Kletterpflanzen: Eine populäre vorlesung’ (Climbing plants: a popular lecture) in Kosmos 9 (1881): 101–16.
4
These two paragraphs were reproduced verbatim in English under the title ‘Aus einem Briefe von Mr. Charles Darwin an die Redaktion’ (From a letter by Mr. Charles Darwin to the editor) in Kosmos 1 (1877): 173. In Variation 2: 259, CD cited Félix d’Azara’s Essais sur l’histoire naturelle des quadrupèdes de la province du Paraguay (Azara 1801, 2: 319) for evidence of increased variability in colour of semi-domesticated horses and cattle compared with their feral counterparts.
5
Krause had sent CD his book Werden und Vergehen (Sterne 1876; see letter from Ernst Krause, 11 March 1877 and n. 4). He probably also sent an offprint of an article by Alexander Feodorowicz Batalin, ‘Mechanik der Bewegungen der insektenfressenden Pflanzen’ (Mechanics of the movements of insectivorous plants; Batalin 1877); CD’s annotated copy is in the Darwin Pamphlet Collection–CUL.

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-10912,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-10912