Ɛpsilon

From G. J. Romanes   21 June 1878

18 Cornwall Terrace:

June 21, 1878.

I am of course very glad to hear that you have no objection to letting me have the benefit of consulting your notes.1

Most observers are in a frantic hurry to publish their work, but what you say about your own feelings seems to me very characteristic. Like the bees, you ought to have some one to take the honey, when you make it to give to the world—not, however, that I want to play the part of a thieving wasp.2 I will send you my manuscript about instinct (or the proofs when out), and you can strike out anything that you would rather publish yourself.

I shall not be able to begin my book till after the jelly-fish season is over.3 This will be in September or October; but I will let you know when I want to read up about instinct.

With very many thanks, I remain, yours very sincerely and most respectfully, | Geo. J. Romanes.

1
See letter to G. J. Romanes, 19 June [1878]. CD had agreed to lend Romanes chapter 10 of his ‘big book’ on species (published in 1975 as Natural selection, pp. 466–527) for Romanes’s work on animal intelligence.
2
CD had also sent his notes on instinct in bees and wasps (DAR 73: 21–2); see letter to G. J. Romanes, 16 June [1878].
3
Romanes was concluding his work on the locomotor system of medusae (jellyfish); see letter from G. J. Romanes, 10 September 1878, and G. J. Romanes 1879. He produced two books that incorporated material from CD on instinct: Animal intelligence (G. J. Romanes 1882) made use of CD’s notes on insects throughout; Mental evolution in animals (G. J. Romanes 1883) contained chapter 10 of CD’s ‘big book’ on species as an appendix.

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-11561,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-11561