Ɛpsilon

To Albany Hancock   12 May [1850]

Down Farnborough Kent

May 12th

My dear Sir

Owing to a perhaps foolish habit of not reading Periodicals when they come out; I have only just read your very interesting paper on the boring of Mollusca in the Annals;1 & this reminded me that you wished for more information regarding Lithotrya;2 I really do not know what to give. I have 3 specimen of Lithotrya & I enclose one for you. I have picked out one that has lately moulted (this moulting of scales unique in whole order of common Cirripedes.) & therefore has the scales on peduncle,3 with the teeth pretty sharp: the valves of course are not moulted, but the old layers scale or are rubbed off.—

I have not one with the basal calcareous cup; though several have been lent me. I wish you could see the basal cup; I feel sure it wd confirm your opinion that it could not be the borer.—4

I can see no reason yet to alter my opinion, that Lithotrya either crawls into cavity which it enlarges or if not, that the larva has the power of boring a hole, in which it fixes itself & undergoes its metamorphosis.5

I have several foreign species of Clisia6 & I will attend to their to me quite wonderful boring-powers.—7

Yours very sincerely | C. Darwin

1
A. Hancock 1848, which was published in Annals and Magazine of Natural History. CD’s bound copy of the volume in which this paper appeared is in the Darwin Library–CUL.
2
Hancock had evidently responded to CD’s letter dated 15 [April 1850], in which CD emphasised the boring capacities of Lithotrya, by asking CD to send specimens.
3
For CD’s views on the moulting of the scales on the peduncle of Lithotrya, see Living Cirripedia (1851): 336–8.
5
CD’s final view was the first alternative: that the peduncle of Lithotrya was the wearing agent (Living Cirripedia (1851): 345–8).
6
CD gave priority to Verruca as the name of this genus.
7
CD concluded that, unlike the pedunculated genus Lithotrya, Verruca did not burrow mechanically but by means of a solvent excreted by the cement ducts (Living Cirripedia (1854): 512–18).

Manuscript Alterations and Comments

1.5 (this moulting of scales unique in whole order of common Cirripedes.) 1.6] added in square brackets in MS; ‘of scales’ interl; ‘order’ before del ‘]’
2.1 one] after del ‘with’
2.2 it wd.] ‘it’ above del ‘you’
2.2 confirm] above del ‘at once admit’
2.2 your opinion] interl

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-1327,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-1327