From H. W. Bates   1 October 1874

Royal Geographical Society | 1, Savile Row. | Burlington Gardens. | W.

Oct. 1 1874

My dear Mr Darwin

Mr Maclachlan, Treasurer & former Secretary of the Entom. Soc.,1 has taken charge of Mrs Barber’s communication & thinks it will be accepted by the Society for publication, with a coloured Plate.2 The phenomenon described is not new, the Society having long ago received communications of a similar nature regarding Pieris brassica &c. but Mrs Barber’s facts are rather more striking than usual.3

Thanks for your kind enquiries regarding my family. I rejoice to say they are all well & have returned invigorated from a long & happy holiday

Mr Belt’s4 address is

Thos Belt

Cornwall House

Ealing W.

Yours sincerely | H W Bates

1
Robert McLachlan served as secretary of the Entomological Society of London from 1868 to 1872, and as treasurer from 1873 to 1875 (ODNB).
2
Mary Elizabeth Barber’s paper ‘Notes on the peculiar habits and changes which take place in the larva of Papilio Nireus’ was communicated by CD, and appeared in Transactions of the Entomological Society of London (Barber 1874). Barber described the pupae of Papilio nireus, the green-banded swallowtail butterfly, assuming the colour of their particular surroundings. The paper had been sent to CD by Joseph Dalton Hooker (see letter from J. D. Hooker, [29 August 1874] and n. 8).
3
Observations of the pupae of Pieris brassicae (the cabbage-white butterfly) appeared in Wood 1867.

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-9666,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-9666