Ɛpsilon

To W. C. McIntosh   18 June 1880

Down. | Beckenham Kent

June 18th 1880.

My dear Sir

I hope that you will forgive me for troubling you with a simple question. Can you refer me to any monograph on British worms (Lumbricidæ.) by which I could find out, how many endemic species there are, and how many burrow in the earth.—1 I want further to know whether there exist any burrowing species on the grassy slopes of mountains of some considerable elevation.

I have attended a little to some of the habits of worms & intend this autumn or winter to publish an essay on the subject; & it is in this relation that I want information. My essay will be barely scientific, but the subject has amused me.— I should like to give a copy on a woodblock of the whole intestinal canal of Lumbricus:— Can you refer me to any simple figure?— Perrier in Archives. Zoolog: Exp: gives an admirable one of Urocheta, but it would be better to give (if I do give any) a drawing of Lumbricus.2

I hope that you will excuse all this trouble & I remain | My dear Sir | Yours faithfully | Charles Darwin.

Copy

1
Lumbricidae is the family of earthworms that contains most European species.
2
Earthworms was not published until October 1881 (Freeman 1977). A diagram of the alimentary canal of Lumbricus appeared in Earthworms, p. 18, copied from the Quarterly Journal of Microscopical Science n.s. 4 (1864): pl. 7. For Edmond Perrier’s diagram of Urochaeta (a genus of earthworms native to South America), see Archives de zoologie expérimentale et générale 3 (1874): pl. 13. CD discussed worm-castings probably from a species of Urochaeta in Earthworms, p. 121.

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-12640,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-12640