From George Rolleston   16 April 1861

Oxford.

April 16. 1861.

My dear Sir—

I write a single line to say that I do not see in your Index to the “Origin of Species” any reference to the point of the “Variability of Rudimentary organs”— This point you touch upon in Pages 149 & 168. And it may be illustrated in the concrete from Leuckart in the Cyclopædia of Anatomy Article “Vesicula Prostatica” p. 1424,1 & from Leydig Zeitschrift Wiss. Zoologie ⁠⟨⁠    ⁠⟩⁠.1.38. ‘a propos of the same structure—2

Yours very Truly | George Rolleston—

CD annotations

Top of first page: ‘10’3 red crayon
1
Leuckart 1852. The article by the German comparative anatomist Rudolph Leuckart was published in volume 4 of Robert Bentley Todd’s The cyclopaedia of anatomy and physiology (London, 1835–59). CD referred to this work in the discussion of rudimentary structures associated with the reproductive system of man in Descent 1: 31.
2
Leydig 1850.
3
The number of one of CD’s portfolios of notes in which he kept information relating to rudimentary structures or abortive organs. Many of the notes in DAR 205.1 are so marked.

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-3120,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-3120