WCP1874

Letter (WCP1874.1764)

[1]

6 Queen Anne St W

Monday [24 June 1867]1

My dear Wallace

I return by this post the journal. Your resumé of glacier action2 seems to me very good and has interested my brother3 much and as the subject is new to him he is a better judge. That is quite a new & perplexing point which you specify about the Freshwater fishes [2] during the glacial period— I have also been very glad to see the article4 on Lyell5 which seems to me to be done by some good man.

I forgot to say when with you, but I then indeed did not know so much as I do now, that the sexual i.e. ornamental differences in fishes, which differences are sometimes very great, offer a difficulty on the wide extension of the view that the female [3]6 is not brightly coloured on account of the danger which she would incur in the propagation of the species.

I very much enjoyed my long conversation with you; and today we return home & I to my horrid dull work correcting proof sheets.

Believe me, | my dear Wallace | yours very sincerely | Charles Darwin [signature]

[4] P.S. I had arranged to go & see your collection on Saturday evening, but my head suddenly failed after luncheon & I was forced to lie down all the rest of day.—

An red crayon annotation adds '1867' at the top left-hand corner of page 1. The date of 24 June 1867 has been established by the Darwin Correspondence Project see DCP-LETT-5404.
Wallace, A. R. 1867. Ice Marks in North Wales (With a Sketch of Glacial Theories and Controversies. Quarterly Journal of Science. 33-47.
Darwin, Erasmus Alvey ("Ras or "Eras") (1804-1881). British, only brother of Charles Robert Darwin.
Anonymous. 1867. Sir Charles Lyell and Modern Geology. Quarterly Journal of Science. 4, 1-19.
Lyell, Charles (1797-1875). British lawyer and geologist.
ARW adds an annotation written vertically in the bottom left-hand corner of page 3. "one female fish somtimes accompanied by two males ∴ males more important? males often protected.."

Published letter (WCP1874.5956)

[1] [p. 177]

6 Queen Anne Street, W. Monday, January, 1867.

My dear Wallace, — I return by this post the Journal.1 Your résumé of glacier action seems to me very good, and has interested my brother much, and as the subject is new to him he is a better judge. That is quite a new and perplexing point which you specify about the freshwater fishes during the glacial period.

I have also been very glad to see the article on Lyell, which seems to me to be done by some good man.

I forgot to say when with you — but I then indeed did not know so much as I do now — that the sexual, i.e. ornamental, differences in fishes, which differences are sometimes very great, offer a difficulty in the wide extension of the view that the female is not brightly coloured on account of the danger which she would incur in the propagation of the species.

I very much enjoyed my long conversation with you; and to day we return home, and I to my horrid dull work of correcting proof-sheets. — Believe me, my dear Wallace, yours very sincerely, CHARLES DARWIN.

P.S. — I had arranged to go and see your collection on Saturday evening, but my head suddenly failed after luncheon, and I was forced to lie down all the rest of the day.

A footnote here reads: "Quarterly Journal of Science, January 7, 1867. "Ice Marks in North Wales," by A. R. Wallace."

Please cite as “WCP1874,” in Beccaloni, G. W. (ed.), Ɛpsilon: The Alfred Russel Wallace Collection accessed on 29 March 2024, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/wallace/letters/WCP1874