Ɛpsilon

From Francis Darwin   [after 4 March 1871]1

Trin. Coll. Camb

Dear Father

Many thanks for yr letter. I am awfully glad about the book £630 is a good lot I suppose2   I havn’t read the second vol yet, & I havn’t looked about Pouters3 mistake but I shall have more time when I have done dissecting— Pryor says he is sure he can sit on Mivart severely, but I dont know what particular seats he is going to take—4 I am glad you flummoxed Mivart;5 he is rather absurd about imitations, he cannot see how the rough beginnings & the finishings could come; an animal might start a rough likeness as a defence against one kind of enemy, such as birds perching on trees & dashing off after butterflies— the likeness might be polished up to any extent by the effects of another kind of enemy   About the kangaroos larynx he forgets that marsupials have probably come from Monotremata, in which the milk is made to ooze out by punching the mama’s stomach; when the muscle to the gland began to be developed, it would be feeble & only cause an oozing probably, & with a feeble current of milk, a little sticking up of the larynx wd be of use.6 I cant think how he can say that the ancestors of all mammals must have been marsupials or else the progen of marsupials & other mammals must have been an animal having in most respects the ordinary mammalian charactr which certainly an Onithorhynchus has not—7 I havnt read the Athenæum,8 which I hear is great book

Salvin is staying with JW, he is a very jolly man9

Yrs affectionately | FD

1
The date is established by the reference to the Athenæum (see n. 8, below), and by the relationship between this letter and the letter to Francis Darwin, [28 February 1871] (Correspondence vol. 19).
2
In his letter to Francis Darwin, [28 February 1871] (Correspondence vol. 19), CD said he had received £630 for the first 2500 copies of Descent.
3
Pouter was Leonard Darwin’s nickname.
4
Marlborough Robert Pryor was evidently planning to write a review of St George Jackson Mivart’s Genesis of species, which had advanced numerous objections to the theory of natural selection (Mivart 1871a; see Correspondence vol. 19, letters to Francis Darwin, [after 21 January 1871] and 21 May [1871]). No review by Pryor has been found.
5
CD met with Mivart on 27 February 1871 (see Correspondence vol. 19, letter to Francis Darwin, [28 February 1871]).
6
Mivart argued that CD’s theory could not explain the emergence of various animal structures, such as the baby kangaroo’s elongated larynx, which enabled it to receive milk from the mother without choking (Mivart 1871a, p. 42). As baby kangaroos are unable to suck, milk is injected into their mouths by a muscular movement of the mother’s mammary gland. CD responded to Mivart’s criticism in Origin 6th ed., pp. 189–90; he discussed the origin of mammary glands, using the example of Ornithorhynchus anatinus (the duck-billed platypus), which has a rudimentary breast, but no nipple. Ornithorhynchus anatinus is one of the few surviving examples of the order Monotremata (egg-laying mammals).
7
See Mivart 1871a, pp. 42 and 68–70.
8
A highly critical review of Descent was published in the Athenæum on 4 March 1871, pp. 275–7 (see Correspondence vol. 19, letter to John Murray, 8 March [1871] and n. 5).
9
Osbert Salvin was curator of ornithology at University of Cambridge. ‘JW’ has not been identified.

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-7564F,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-7564F