Ɛpsilon

From G. H. Darwin   19 April 1877

Trin. Coll. Camb

Ap 19. 77

My dear Father

The reference to the Worm paper is

Zeitschrift für Wissenschaftliche Zoologie. Bd. XXVIII 1877 p 354.1 F. Balfour asked me to give you a message the other day which I quite forgot. He saw Lacaze Duthier when he was in Paris, who told him that you are about to be proposed again for the Academy, but that Huxley is proposed at same time & it is not unlikely may succeed as against you as being more orthodox!!2

Duthier is unwell himself but is doing what he can but, fears he will not be able to be present himself. He asked Balfour to let you know this.

I have just received the enclosed from Galton, which will give you a more accurate account of poor Mrs Galton’s state than you will have been likely to have received lately.3

Horace has taken his M.A today, & dined at the high table tonight4 We went to King’s afterwards to try to find Bradshaw but failed there & so went to another man’s room; & I’ve just got back leaving him to make another try for Bradshaw.5

This disgusting East wind has brought back my cold again and has been making me pretty wretched, but I contrive to stick to work fairly tho’ it’s uphill work. I don’t think I’ve any more news.

Yours affectionately | G H Darwin

1
The worm paper was Victor Hensen’s ‘Die Thätigkeit des Regenwurms (Lumbricus terrestris L.) für die Fruchtbarkeit des Erdbodens’ (The action of earthworms (Lumbricus terrestris L.) for the fertility of earth; Hensen 1877).
2
Francis Maitland Balfour was a fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, and lecturer in animal morphology. Félix Joseph Henri de Lacaze-Duthiers had supported the nomination of CD for election to the anatomy and zoology sections of the Académie des sciences in 1872 (see Correspondence vol. 20, letter from Armand de Quatrefages, 12 January 1872). CD was not elected to the académie until 5 August 1878, and then it was to the botanical section (Comptes rendus hebdomadaires des séances de l’Académie des sciences 87 (1878): 245; see also Stebbins 1988, pp. 147–9). Thomas Henry Huxley was never elected to the académie (see L. Huxley ed. 1900, 2: 472).
3
The enclosure has not been found. Louisa Jane Galton had been ill but Galton reported she was convalescent and had started to go out a little in his letter to CD of 22 February 1877 (for more on her health, see Gillham 2001, p. 206).
4
Horace Darwin had received his BA from the University of Cambridge in 1874 (Alum. Cantab). The Cambridge MA is conferred on holders of the BA degree of the university and entitles the holder to dine at High Table on occasion in many colleges and to borrow books from the University Library.
5
Henry Bradshaw was the librarian at Cambridge University Library and a fellow of King’s College.

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-10933,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-10933