Ɛpsilon

To Miss Holland1   [May 1856]2

[Down]

My dear Miss Holland

Fortunately for my entomological credit, a first-rate Entomologist has been staying with me, to whom I showed the pupa which you sent me, & he says it would turn into one of the Lackey moths, probably the Eriogaster lanestris.—3 Last summer moths & butterflies abounded in an unprecedented degree, & entomologists attribute this abundance, I believe rightly, to the great destruction of birds during the winter previous to that just passed;4 & the scarcity of birds saved many caterpillars which otherwise would have been devoured, & hence the numerous cocoons on your Hawthorn Hedges.—

Emma demands the rest of this note,5 so pray believe me, dear Miss Holland, yours very sincerely | Charles Darwin

1
Mary Holland or her younger sister Lucy. The Darwins and Wedgwoods were related to the Holland family.
2
Dated by the reference to Thomas Vernon Wollaston, who visited the Darwins from 25 to 28 April 1856 (Emma Darwin’s diary).
3
See n. 2, above. In the manuscript, ‘Mr Wollaston’ was interlined in a different hand, possibly Emma Darwin’s, after ‘first-rate Entomologist’ and, in the same hand, ‘Eriogaster lanestris’ was written above CD’s text.
4
The weather in January and February 1855 had been particularly severe (see Correspondence vol. 5, letter to W. D. Fox, 19 March [1855] and n. 7). CD refers to the large-scale destruction of birds in his garden during that winter in Origin, p. 68.
5
Emma Darwin’s note has been excised.

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-1861,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-1861