Ɛpsilon

From Julius Victor Carus   28 January 1868

Leipzig

Jan 28th. 1868.

My dear Sir,

As the printing of the 2. Volume goes on, rather slowly just now, I have to ask you again some questions.1

On p. 68. you mention again the egyptian Goose as Tadorna aegyptus   Of course it will be Anser.2 It didn’t strike me as some authors think, the χηναλώπηξ of the Ancients was Anser Tadorna.

P. 170. Note 109. Ann. de science. nature 2. Sér. Zoolog. This is I think a misprint for Botan., as Decaisne never wrote in the Zoological Series3

P. 229. l. 12 from above “in proportion to the white” must it not be “black”. As it stands now, you say: “the white are sluggish in proportion to the white”.4

I hope your health is pretty well.

Believe me | Yours most sincerely | Prof J. Victor Carus

CD annotations

3.2 Series] ‘(Dujardin—)’ ink
Top of letter: ‘thirteen for ourselves5 | Last sheets | Clean copy’ pencil
1
Carus refers to the German translation of Variation (Carus trans. 1868).
2
In Variation 2: 68, CD referred to the Egyptian goose as Tadorna Aegyptiacus; he changed the name to Anser Aegyptiacus in the second printing. The species is now known as Alopochen aegyptiaca.
3
In Variation 2: 170 n. 109, CD reported an observation of Lysimachia nummularia by Joseph Decaisne; Decaisne’s observation appeared in a zoological article by Félix Dujardin (Dujardin 1845). See CD’s annotation.
4
In Variation 2: 229, CD quoted from M. G. Lewis 1845, p. 100, on the horned cattle of the West Indies: ‘The white [cattle] are terribly “tormented by the insects; and they are weak and sluggish in proportion to the white’” (that is, the cattle were weak and sluggish in proportion to their whiteness).
5
The number may refer to the number of presentation copies: there are eleven names on CD’s presentation list for the German edition of Variation (see Correspondence vol. 16, Appendix IV).

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-5809,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-5809