Ɛpsilon

To Stephen Price   1 September [1881]1

Down, Beckenham, Kent,

Sept. 1.—

Dear Sir,—

I am sorry I cannot answer your question.2 The Tipulidæ, or gnat family, is a very difficult one and not well known.3 No trustworthy evidence has been advanced of the introduction or appearance in this country of a new species; but it seems to me probable that some English species have lately increased in number.—

Dear Sir, yours faithfully,—C. Darwin.

1
The year is established by the date of this letter’s publication in The Times.
2
See letter from Stephen Price, 30 August [1881] and n. 2. In The Times, 5 September 1881, p. 10, Price was described as a ‘scientific gentleman of South Kensington’, who had written to CD the previous week. However, the address Price gives in his letter of 30 August was in a working-class area consisting of small poor houses with multiple occupants.
3
The family Tipulidae (crane flies) includes some insects commonly referred to as gnats, but the term ‘gnat’ often has a broader usage and can refer to several families in the suborder Nematocera, to which Tipulidae belongs.

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-13311,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-13311