To J.-H. Fabre   31 January 1880

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

Jan 31. 1880

My dear Sir.

I hope that you will permit me to have the satisfaction of thanking you cordially for the lively pleasure which I have derived from reading your book1   Never have the wonderful habits of insects been more vividly described, and it is almost as good to read about them as to see them. I feel sure that you would not be unjust to even an insect much less to a man— Now you have been misled by some translator, for my grandfather. Erasmus Darwin states (Zoonomia— Vol I p. 183.— 1794) that it was a wasp (guêpe) which he saw cutting off the wings of a large fly   I have no doubt that you are right in saying that the wings are generally cut off instinctively, but in the case described by my grandfather; the wasp after cutting off the two ends of the body rose in the air and was turned round by the wind; he then alighted and cut off the wings.2 I must believe with Pierre Huber that insects have “une petite dose de raison”3 In the next edition of your book—I hope that you will alter part of what you say about my grandfather.

I am sorry that you are so strongly opposed to the Descent Theory; I have found the searching for the history of each structure, or instinct an excellent aid to observation; and wonderful observer as you are, it would suggest new points to you.— If I were to write on the evolution of instincts, I could make good use of some of the facts which you give. Permit me to add that when I read the last sentence in your book, I sympathise deeply with you—4

With the most sincere respect | I remain dear Sir. | Yours faithfully. | Charles Darwin.

P.S. | Allow me to make a suggestion in relation to your wonderful account of insects finding their way home.5 I formerly wished to try it with pigeons. Namely to carry the insects in their paper ‘cornets’ about a hundred paces in the opposite direction to that which you ultimately intended to carry them; but before turning round to return to put the insect in a circular box with an axle which could be made to revolve very rapidly first in one direction & then in another, so as to destroy for a time all sense of direction in the insects. I have sometimes imagined that animals may feel in which direction they were at the first start carried. If this plan failed, I had intended placing the pigeons within an induction coil, so as to disturb any magnetic or dia-magnetic sensibility which it seems just possible that they may possess.—

C.D.

Copy and LS incomplete6

1
CD had received a copy of Souvenirs entomologiques (Fabre 1879; see letter from J.-H. Fabre, 3 January 1880).
2
In Zoonomia, Erasmus Darwin had described a common wasp (probably Vespula vulgaris) removing the wings of a fly (E. Darwin 1794–6, 1: 183). Fabre had quoted a French account of Erasmus Darwin’s description in Introduction à l’entomologie (Lacordaire 1834–8, 2: 460–1), in which the wasp was misnamed Sphex, a genus of digger wasps that paralyse prey (see Fabre 1879, p. 124).
3
Jean Pierre Huber; the correct quotation is ‘une petite dose de jugement’ (Huber 1836, p. 157). CD referred to this passage in Origin, p. 208 (see also Natural selection, p. 469).
4
The final page of Fabre’s book (Fabre 1879, p. 323) contained a dedication to his son, Jules, who had died in 1877: Cher enfant, ravi si jeune à ton amour passioné des fleurs et des insectes, tu étais mon collaborateur, rien n’échappait à ton regard clairvoyant; pour toi, je devais écrire ce livre, dont les récits faisaient ta joie; et tu devais toi-même le continuer un jour. Hélas! tu es parti pour une meilleure demeure, ne connaissant encore du livre que les premieres lignes! Que ton nom du moins y figure, porté par quelques-uns de ces industrieux et beaux Hyménopteres que tu aimais tant. (Dear child, torn so young from your passionate love of flowers and insects, you were my collaborator, nothing escaped your perceptive gaze; for you, I had to write this book, whose stories made you happy; and you were going to continue it one day. Alas! You have gone to a better place, still knowing nothing of the book but the first lines! May your name at least appear here, carried by some of the industrious and beautiful hymenopterans that you loved so much.) Fabre named the wasps Cerceris julii, Bembex julii, and Ammophila julii after his son (Fabre 1879, pp. 320–3).
5
See Fabre 1879, pp. 261–74. For CD’s interest in homing instincts, see Correspondence vol. 21, letters to Nature, [before 13 March 1873] and [before 3 April 1873]. A manuscript by CD on instinct, containing an extended discussion of migration, was eventually published as an appendix to G. J. Romanes 1883, pp. 355–84.
6
The postscript has been transcribed from a photocopy of the original in Paris.

Manuscript Alterations and Comments

4.7 in the insects] interl in CD’s hand

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-12443,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-12443