Ɛpsilon

To Christian Ferdinand Friedrich von Krauss   21 December [1851]

Down Bromley Kent

Dec. 21.

Sir

I hope that you will forgive me addressing you. I am preparing a monograph on the Cirripedia, & am extremely anxious to make it as perfect as possible. Will you confer on a fellow naturalist & traveller, the great favour of the loan of a specimen of your Conia rosea, which shall be faithfully returned to you.1 A single valve of the shell, & two valves on either side of the operculum, would be sufficient, if you do not like to trust a perfect specimen in a letter. Will you be so kind as to tell me, whether you collected C. rosea yourself, or whether it was given to you; I ask, because I have a closely allied form from Australia, which surprises me a good deal.—2

Trusting that you will forgive me troubling, & that your kindness will prompt you to oblige me, though a stranger, if it lies in your power,

I beg to remain, | Sir | Your obliged & faithful servant | Charles Darwin To | Professor Krauss | &c &c &c

1
Strictly adhering to the rule of priority set out in the British Association for the Advancement of Science rules of nomenclature, CD named this specimen Tetraclita rosea (see Living Cirripedia (1854): 321). Krauss had described it in Krauss 1848, p. 136. CD thanked him in Living Cirripedia (1854): 335 n. for sending a ‘unique specimen collected by himself in Algoa Bay.’ In his ‘Journal’ (Correspondence vol. 5, Appendix I), CD noted that he ‘began Genus Conia’ on 12 November 1851. Tetraclita rosea is a snyonym of Tesseropora rosea.
2
In Living Cirripedia (1854): 335 n., CD stated: ‘There can be no doubt of the identity of the African and Australian specimens. It is a singular circumstance that the same species should occur in these two distant places, and, as far as at present known, not in the intermediate, more tropical coasts.’

Manuscript Alterations and Comments

1.2 as perfect] ‘as’ over illeg
1.7 you;] semi-colon altered from colon

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-1465,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-1465