Ɛpsilon

To John Price   27 [July 1874]1

Abinger Hall | Wotton | Surrey

27th

My dear Price

I received yesterday from home a redirected little box, & from a word written inside I think that you must have sent it. It contained a sp. of Utricularia & has proved a treasure to me.2

By good chance I found a simple microscope here with a few tools, so that I could look at some details, enough to show me that with some important difference, there is essential similarity.3 I opened by chance 5 of the largest bladders & all contained dead Entomostraca,4—24, 20, 15, 10 & 7 respectively.— What slaughter! Very many thanks. I have put spec. in spirits for future more careful observations.

[Now] Thursday we go for 3 weeks to my son’s house Bassett, Southampton.5

Yours sincerely | Ch. Darwin

1
The month and year are established by the address and the reference to visiting Southampton (see n. 5, below). CD stayed at Abinger from 25 to 30 July 1874 (Emma Darwin’s diary (DAR 242)).
2
William Darwin Fox had written to Price in June 1874, asking him to look for Utricularia and send specimens to CD (see letter from W. D. Fox, 22 June [1874]). CD identified the specimen as Utricularia minor (lesser bladderwort) in his letter to Francis Darwin, [c. 27 July 1874].
3
CD and Francis were studying Utricularia vulgaris (common bladderwort; see letter to J. D. Hooker, 16 July 1874).
4
Entomostraca was formerly the name used to refer to all crustaceans other than Malacostraca (Leftwich 1973).
5
The Darwins visited William Erasmus Darwin from Thursday 30 July to 24 August 1874 (Emma Darwin’s diary (DAR 242)).

Manuscript Alterations and Comments

0.1 Abinger … Surrey] above del ‘Down, | Beckenham, Kent.’
2.4 —24,] after del ‘one’

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-9565,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-9565