To G. J. Romanes   10 August [1877]1

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

Aug. 10th

Dear Romanes

When I wrote yesterday, I had not received todays Nature & I thought that your Lecture was finished.— This final part is one of the grandest essays which I ever read.2 It was very foolish of me to demur to your lines of conveyance, like the threads in muslin, knowing how you have considered the subject; but still I must confess I cannot feel quite easy.3 Everyone I suppose thinks on what he has himself seen & with Drosera, a bit of meat put on any one gland on the disc causes all the surrounding tentacles to bend to this point; & here there can hardly be differentiated lines of conveyance. It seems to me that the tentacles probably bend to that point whence a molecular wave strikes them, which passes through the cellular tissue with equal ease in all directions in this particular case.— But what a fine case that of the Aurelia is!4

Forgive me for bothering you with another note—, | Yours very sincerely | C. Darwin

1
The year is established by the relationship between this letter and the letter to G. J. Romanes, 9 August [1877].
2
See letter to G. J. Romanes, 9 August [1877] and n. 2. CD had commented on the first two parts of Romanes’s article ‘Evolution of nerves and nervous systems’ (G. J. Romanes 1877b).
4
CD described the inflection of the tentacles of Drosera rotundifolia (common or round-leaved sundew) in Insectivorous plants, pp. 19–37. Aurelia aurita (moon jelly or common jellyfish) was the principal organism that Romanes had studied.

Manuscript Alterations and Comments

1.3 very] interl
1.3 of conveyance,] interl
1.3 like] after del ‘of’
1.3 the] altered from ‘thr’
1.3 threads] interl
1.5 I suppose] interl

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-11099,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-11099