To John Lubbock   10 [September 1853]1

Down Bromley Kent

10th—

Dear Lubbock

Did I understand you rightly that you had lately seen somewhere a Paper on the metamorphoses of the Pycnogons?2 I want to tell Mr C. S. Bate where, that is if my memory is right & you did tell me.— Will you take the trouble to send me one line?— I hope you are prosperous. I am much knocked up with Mr Sowerby.3

Ever your’s | C. Darwin

2
Quatrefages de Bréau 1842. John Lubbock had for the past year been studying the Crustacea. In 1853 he published three papers describing new species of Calanidae, including specimens CD collected on board the Beagle (Lubbock 1853a, 1853b, and 1853c). Lubbock, however, may have sent Bate a more recent and extended work, for in Bate 1855, p. 39, Bate stated: ‘Since the present paper was communicated to the Linnæan Society, the author has had the opportunity, through the kindness of Mr. J. Lubbock, of perusing Dana’s great work on Crustacea’. Dana treated the Pycnogonida (which he classed as a family of the arachnoid Entomostraca but which is now ranked as a separate class) in Dana 1852–3, pt 2, pp. 1382–91. See also letter to J. D. Dana, 27 September [1853].
3
In the last half of 1853, CD’s Account book (Down House MS) has several entries for payments to George Brettingham Sowerby Jr, including a large sum on 17 September, for drawings and plates for both Fossil Cirripedia (1854) and Living Cirripedia (1854). The total for 1853 was given as £57 12s. 9d., less the £42 that CD had already advanced to Sowerby through the Ray Society (see letter to J. S. Bowerbank, 28 September [1851], n. 3, for details of part of the loan).

Manuscript Alterations and Comments

1.2 Pycnogons?] ‘?’ altered from ‘:’
1.2 that is] interl
1.3 & you did tell me.] interl

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-1365,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-1365