Darwin Correspondence Project

Down Farnborough Kent

Jan 10^th—

My dear Sir

I am uncommonly obliged to you for taking so much trouble as to write at such length to me; though in truth when I think of your many important pursuits in Nat. History, I am ashamed to have lost you more than one good hour of time.— Your cautions & suggestions will be of considerable service to me, as leading to fresh observations & making me explain some points more clearly. I will not take up your time in going into several points you notice in this letter, but they shall all be more or less attended to in my Book. I may just inform you, that when a ribbed shell is cut through, it can be seen that the marginal erosion does not graduate into the central hollow: [DIAGRAM HERE] ligament a a a indeed if whole base was simultaneously being eroded it is hard to see how basals membrane & shell c^d be firmly attached. I quite agree that more specimens on calc: & non calc: supports sh^d be examined, & I will write to a naturalist in Devonshire to collect for me: I think, however, you did not understand that there were several specimens on the two slate-rocks & hundreds on the Laminariæ.—

I am quite delighted at what you say about my little friends, the complemental males; I greatly feared that no one w^d believe in them; & now I know that Owen, Dana & yourself are believers, I am most heartily content. I entirely agree with you on your remarks on cross-impregnation— some years ago I set to work to collect facts on this head, but I have as yet done nothing with them: such view as yours is the only foundation, I am well convinced, to Steenstrup's rather wild Memoir on the non-existence of Hermaphroditism in Nature,—though he extends the doctrine to mere physical organs!

Many thanks for the wretched M.S. returned: I am quite sorry I asked for it, for I never dreamed that you had not long ago got what little good you could out of it: I < > be pleased at your doing whate<ver> you < > with my specimens, &c. You sha<ll> hear, when I have gr< > with Alcippe: the other evening I read over your Paper & could not get to sleep for hours, from thinking of its curious & anomalous structure: I have some other specimens of yours.—

With my sincere thanks | Believe me, my dear Sir, Yours sincerely | C. Darwin