Ɛpsilon

To S. P. Woodward1   [April 1850 – January 1851]2

Down Farnborough Kent

Monday Evening

My dear Sir

I write a line to thank you & Mr Waterhouse much for the specimens which all arrived quite safely: they consist of

(1) Scalpellum trilineatum (of which I have hitherto seen only one specimen)

(2) S. arcuatum (of which you before sent me one, but different valve.—3

(3) P. rigidus

(4) P. lævis or unguis4

With thanks | Yours sincerely | C. Darwin

1
Woodward, an assistant in the department of geology and mineralogy at the British Museum, is the most likely recipient of this letter. See letter to S. P. Woodward, 21 March [1850], and Fossil Cirripedia (1851) in which all four specimens in this letter are described as coming from the British Museum. George Robert Waterhouse was a colleague of Woodward.
2
The date range is limited by the date by which CD would have received Scalpellum specimens from Woodward (see letter to S. P. Woodward, 21 March [1850]) and the date of completion of the manuscript of the first volume of Fossil Cirripedia (1851) in January 1851.
3
See letter to S. P. Woodward, 21 March [1850]. Scalpellum trilineatum is a synonym of Arcuatoscalpellum trilineatum; S. arcuatum is a synonym of Arcuatoscalpellum arcuatum
4
The specimens are described in Fossil Cirripedia (1851): 38, 40, 73, and 64, respectively. Pollicipes rigidus is a synonym of P. elegans. Pollicipes unguis (a synonym of Cretiscalpellum unguis) had previously been confused with P. laevis by James de Carle Sowerby, and CD used these and other specimens to distinguish the two species, reserving the name P. laevis for the barnacle identified and first named by Johannes Japetus Smith Steenstrup (Fossil Cirripedia (1851): 55, 64–5, 80).

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-13807,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-13807