To J. E. Gray 1 July [1856]1
Down Bromley Kent
July 1st—
My dear Gray
You once told me that you would help me in my Essay on variation. I want much some information on a point of Geographical Distrib., & to be allowed, to give information on your authority. It is, whether there are genera of Echinoderms, starfish &c, which have species (especially if closely related) in the Northern & Southern seas, but have not any one species in the Tropical seas? Or whether there are any closely related & representative genera in the north & south, without any closely related genus within the Tropics?2
I am quite ignorant about the range of Echinoderms & perhaps all the genera have very confined ranges. Could I find information on this head in any publication?
Pray forgive, if you can, the trouble, & believe me, Yours very sincerely | Ch. Darwin
Footnotes
Bibliography
Natural selection: Charles Darwin’s Natural selection: being the second part of his big species book written from 1856 to 1858. Edited by R. C. Stauffer. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1975.
Summary
Requests information on ranges of echinoderms for his essay on variation [Natural selection]. Are there genera with representative species in northern and southern seas, but none in tropics?
Letter details
- Letter no.
- DCP-LETT-1915
- From
- Charles Robert Darwin
- To
- John Edward Gray
- Sent from
- Down
- Source of text
- Natural History Museum, Library and Archives (General Special Collections MSS DAR 69)
- Physical description
- ALS 3pp
Please cite as
Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 1915,” accessed on 28 March 2024, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-1915.xml
Also published in The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, vol. 6