Ɛpsilon

To J. J. Weir   1 May 1875

Down, | Beckenham, Kent. | Railway Station | Orpington. S.E.R.

May 1st 1875

My dear Sir

I have had a letter from Prof. Weismann who is much interested in your experiments on birds not eating gaudy caterpillars.—1 He wishes much to know whether you have tried any other experiments since those published in the Ent. Transactions? Will you kindly inform me soon, & whether you know of similar ones performed by other observers.2 Those by Riley of U. States seemed to me the best.—3

Yours very sincerely | Ch. Darwin

1
August Weismann’s letter to CD has not been found, but for Weismann’s interest in Weir’s observations on caterpillars, see CD’s comments in his letter to August Weismann, 1 and 4 May 1875.
2
Weir’s reply to CD’s query has not been found, but a part of it was copied out by CD in his letter to August Weismann, 1 and 4 May 1875. Weir had published two papers in the Transactions of the Entomological Society of London on the colour and edibility (to birds) of Lepidoptera and their larvae (Weir 1869 and Weir 1870).
3
Charles Valentine Riley, state entomologist of Missouri, had noted that birds avoided eating brightly coloured caterpillars (Riley 1869–77, 3: 134).

Manuscript Alterations and Comments

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Please cite as “DCP-LETT-9962,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-9962