From Raphael Meldola   12 March 1872

Dear Sir,

I made notes of one or two of the facts given by Fritz Müller in the letter which you were good enough to submit to my perusal some time since.¹ Do you think that this gentleman would have any objection to my publishing them in my forthcoming paper—provided of course you have no intention of doing so yourself.² I may remark that it is only the facts that I want—as you advise, I should not dare to publish his view that ♀ butterflies have their tastes altered by constantly seeing other beautiful forms inhabiting the same district. It is a proposition at present incapable of proof. The specimens accompanying Fritz Müller’s letter, for the loan of which I am much obliged to you, I shall shortly return. Many specimens ranked by Müller as one species have been resolved by my friend Mr. A. G. Butler into several species & this considerably alters the views expressed by Müller in his letter. I will send you the names of the species with the specimens.

The case of mimicry by a ♂ butterfly only to which you referred me was given by Mr. Butler in “Nature”—³ This gentleman has since told me of other cases in which ♂s are better mimics than their ♀. These cases I propose publishing as telling against Mr. Wallace’s statement that no ♂ mimic only is known.⁴

I have just perused with interest the 6^th. ed. of your “Origin”— I was always impressed with the idea that the theory of Nat. Selec. had nothing to fear from Mr. Mivart’s “Genesis of Species”⁵ & in a very warm (but entirely one-sided) debate at the London Union⁶ in which, (against every speaker that rose), I maintained the proposition that you had satisfactorily demonstrated the descent of man from some lower animal, I had to reply in chief part to objections taken from Mr. Mivart’s work. Your recent reply to this zoologist’s objections is to my mind eminently satisfactory, & Prof. Huxley’s criticism in “Contemporary Review” appears also to have completely answered his theological & ethical objections.⁷

Believe me to be, | Yours with respect, | Raphael Meldola.

C. Darwin Esq, M.A. &c.