Ɛpsilon

To J. V. Carus   30 January 1871

Down. | Beckenham | Kent. S.E.

Jan 30 1871

My dear Sir

I am much obliged for yr corrections. The omission at p. 128 was a stupid one; please to add—“Proceedings of Royal Society.”1

I am perplexed about the name Hyrtl; I have referred to your Bibliotheca Zoo: & I find the name thus spelt. Perhaps there is a Hyrt as well as a Hyrtl.2 Be so kind as to inform me on this head.

There are some other errata, & as soon as I can get a proof of the errata I will send you a copy—

At p. 327. please to omit, (10 lines from bottom) the words “or Annulosa”; though I find authors differ so much in their classification that I hardly know what term is the most correct—3

I have now sent you sheets as far as p. 160 of vol 2—& I hope, in about a fortnight, to send you the remainder.

My dear Sir | yours sincerely | Ch. Darwin

LS(A)

2
See letter from J. V. Carus, 26 January 1871 and n. 2. The reference is to Josef Hyrtl. CD misunderstood Carus’s correction; in Descent 1: 20 n. 23, the name was printed as ‘Hyrt’. CD also refers to Carus and Engelmann 1861; there is a lightly annotated copy in the Darwin Library–CUL (see Marginalia 1: 160).
3
In Descent 1: 327, first printing, there is a subheading, ‘Sub-kingdom of the Vermes or Annulosa: Class, Annelida (or Sea-worms)’; in the second printing, the words ‘or Annulosa’ are omitted. Annelida is now a phylum which includes all segmented worms and leeches in the animal kingdom. On Victorian classification of this group, see Natural History Review 5 (1865): 323–51, especially p. 330, where the anonymous author writes, ‘We find modern German naturalists ignoring the old sub-kingdom Annulosa, and substituting in its stead three sub-kingdoms—Arthropoda, Vermes, and Echinodermata.’

Manuscript Alterations and Comments

4.2 in their classification] interl in CD’s hand

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-7465,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-7465