Ɛpsilon

From Frederic Ward Putnam   29 January 1866

Essex Institute, | Salem, Mass.

Jan 29 1866

Charles Darwin Esq.

Dear Sir:

Professor J. Wyman, of Cambridge, has requested me to send you a copy of a short paper which I read at a meeting of the Essex Institute Oct. 1863, on the habits of some of our species of Humble Bees (Bombus), thinking that you might be interested in my observations on the formation of the cells in the nest of Bombus.1 I, therefore, take the liberty of mailing a copy of the paper to you. You will notice on reading the paper that I state that the larvæ make the cells & not the old bees.2 I have examined so many nests of the several species of Bombus during the last 3 years that I feel confident I have made no mistake in regard to this point.

You will, I think, be interested in Dr. Packards account of the “Humble Bees & their Parasites” sent under the same cover with my “Notes &c”3

I shall soon publish an account of a singular specimen of an Eel which was found in a well. This eel, which is our common species Anguilla bostoniensis, is of most singular shape. Having the head much shortened & broader than is normal, & with the eyes & pectoral fins very much developed.4 The enclosed rough sketch will give you an idea of the shape of the head.5 The rest of the specimen is normal. The well in which the eel was found is situated nearly a mile from either salt or fresh water.6 How the eel got into the well & what caused it to be so singularly formed I will not undertake to say.

I am, sir, | very respectfully, | your ob’t. sv’t, | F. W. Putnam, | Supt. E.I.

1
Putnam refers to Jeffries Wyman, to Putnam 1863a, and to the genus Bombus. See letter from Jeffries Wyman, 11 January 1866. An annotated copy of Putnam 1863a is in the Darwin Pamphlet Collection–CUL.
2
Putnam 1863a, p. 102, describes how Bombus larvae determined the position of cells by making cavities in the surrounding pollen mass. The larvae then initiated the cells by spinning cocoons around themselves. However, thereafter adults built the walls of the cells by covering the cocoons with wax. In CD’s copy of the paper, the passage describing this process is scored in pencil.
3
The reference is to Alpheus Spring Packard Jr and Packard 1864, a lightly annotated copy of which is in the Darwin Pamphlet Collection–CUL, in a paper cover that also contains Putnam 1863a and another paper by Putnam on leaf-cutting bees (Putnam 1863b).
4
Putnam exhibited the malformed eel (Anguilla bostoniensis, now A. rostrata) at the meeting of the Boston Society of Natural History on 7 February 1866. The eel had been recovered from a well that had dried out during the previous season. At the meeting, Wyman attributed the deformities of the eel to the retention of the proportions of the embryonic head, citing similar observations in calves and birds and in a breed of cattle in Buenos Aires with short, broad heads and large eyes. (Proceedings of the Boston Society of Natural History (1866) 10: 295–6.) For information on the survival of eels out of water and on their movement through subterranean waters, see Tesch 1977, pp. 213–4, 234–5.
5
The enclosure has not been found.
6
The well was in Lynn (Proceedings of the Boston Society of Natural History (1866) 10: 295), a small city in Essex county, eastern Massachusetts (Columbia gazetteer of the world).

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-4987,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-4987