Ɛpsilon

To W. D. Crick   21 February 1882

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

Feb. 21st 1882

Dear Sir

Your fact is an interesting one, & I am very much obliged to you for communicating it to me.—1 You speak a little doubtfully about the name of the shell, & it wd be indispensable to have this ascertained with certainty. Do you know any good conchologist in Northampton who cd. name it? If so, I shd. be much obliged if you wd. inform me of the result. Also the length & breadth of the shell & how much of leg (which leg?) of the Dytiscus has been caught.— If you cannot get the shell named, I could take it to the British Museum, when I next go to London; but this probably will not occur for about 6 weeks, & you may object to lend the specimen for so long a time. I am inclined to think that the case cd. be worth communicating to “Nature”.—2

Again thanking you I remain, Dear Sir | yours faithfully Ch. Darwin

P.S. | I suppose that the animal in the shell must have been alive when the Dytiscus was captured; otherwise the adductor muscle of the shell wd. have relaxed & the shell dropped off?

1
See letter from W. D. Crick, 18 February 1882 and n. 1. Crick had found a diving beetle of the genus Dytiscus with a small clam attached to one of its feet. He thought the clam might be Sphaerium corneum, the European fingernail clam.
2
After receiving more information, CD communicated the case to Nature (‘Dispersal of freshwater bivalves’).

Manuscript Alterations and Comments

0.1 (Railway … S.E.R.)] parentheses added
1.6 (which leg?)] interl
1.6 Dytiscus has] ‘has’ altered from ‘was’
1.7 could] altered from ‘will’
3.1 animal in the] interl

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-13696,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-13696