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To W. T. Thiselton-Dyer   12 November [1881]1

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

Novr. 12th

My dear Dyer

It was very good of you to write so long & interesting a letter, & you must have enjoyed a holiday from your never ending & always beginning labours.2 I have always watched with interest the Phylloxera & Vine case.3 Good Lord what would happen if some such pest attacked Wheat! With respect to Dischidia, Hooker suggested my son Frank, so I mentioned it to him (now in N. Wales & catching almost daily Salmon from 10 to 15 lb !!!) & he seemed to like the idea much.4 If he has not time, I will remember with thankfulness your suggestion. I read with interest Mr Gardiner’s paper on water-pores.5 Frank has become under De Bary a good hand at cutting sections & all natural science seems now to depend on section-cutting.6 I am practising at this work, with very moderate success, & look at a man who can cut a really good section, as the greatest of human beings. N.B. I cut a pretty good one this morning, & did not I silently triumph?—

I am very much obliged for your offer of plants; but Hooker sent me all that I want at present. I am rather in despair about my present work & change my views every day. The phenomenon is a very odd one, but whether I shall make anything of it, I am very doubtful.—7 I have a deal of work for Frank, whenever he has caught all the confounded salmons in the river.—

I have signed with very great pleasure Mr Trimen’s certificate & he certainly well deserves to be elected.8

Pray remember me very kindly to Mrs Dyer & believe me

Yours very sincerely | Ch. Darwin

My worm-book has been received with almost laugable enthusiasm & 3500 copies have been sold!!!!!9

1
The year is established by the reference to Earthworms.
2
Thiselton-Dyer’s letter has not been found. He had been on a six-week holiday with his wife, Harriet Anne Thiselton-Dyer (letter from J. D. Hooker, [23 October 1881]).
3
Grape phylloxera (Daktulosphaira vitifoliae) is a small sap-sucking insect native to North America; it was accidentally introduced in the mid nineteenth century to Europe, where it devastated grapevines. For CD’s interest in phylloxera, see Correspondence vol. 28, letter to James Caird, 24 March 1880, enclosure and n. 6.
4
Joseph Dalton Hooker had suggested that Francis Darwin work on Dischidia rafflesiana (a synonym of D. major, later known as the ant plant) in his letter of 27 October 1881; see also letter to Francis Darwin, 28 [October 1881]. Francis had sent some of the fish he caught in Wales to Down (letter from Francis Darwin, [21 October 1881]).
5
Walter Gardiner was still an undergraduate at University of Cambridge when he published his study on the development of water glands in the leaf of Saxifraga crustata (Gardiner 1881).
6
Francis had worked with Anton de Bary in Straßburg (Strasbourg; see letter from Francis Darwin, 14 May 1881). Section cutting is a technique for making very thin slices of tissue for examination under a microscope.
7
CD was studying the response of root cells of Euphorbia (spurge) and other species to different chemicals. For the plants CD requested, see the letters to J. D. Hooker, 22 October 1881 and 30 October 1881. See also letter to Francis Darwin, 9 November [1881] and n. 9.
8
CD signed the certificate for Roland Trimen in November 1881; he was elected a fellow of Royal Society of London in 1883 (Royal Society archives: certificates of election and candidature for fellowship of the Royal Society, EC/1881/14).
9
On the sale of Earthworms, see the letter from R. F. Cooke, 5 November 1881.

Manuscript Alterations and Comments

0.1 (Railway Station | Orpington. S.E.R.)] parentheses added
1.2 your] interl
1.8 under De Bary] interl

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-13480,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-13480