To M. A. T. Whitby 14 October [1847]
Down Farnborough | Kent
Oct 14th
Dear Madam
I am extremely much obliged by your kindness in sending me so capital a suite of male & female specimens. I am surprised at their not being a marked difference in the size of their wings:1 what you tell me of the wings of the female being smaller than those of the male, in their early growth is quite new to me.2 I hope to get a friend to enquire how these facts are with the species in India.3
I am sincerely grateful for your kind promise to make further observations, on the points which interest me next summer.
Pray believe me, dear Madam | Yours truly obliged | C. Darwin
Footnotes
Bibliography
Variation: The variation of animals and plants under domestication. By Charles Darwin. 2 vols. London: John Murray. 1868.
Summary
Thanks for a suite of male and female specimens of Lepidoptera. Lack of difference in size of wings surprises CD; the female’s being smaller than male’s in early growth is new to him. Will ask a friend in India for comparable facts.
Letter details
- Letter no.
- DCP-LETT-1128
- From
- Charles Robert Darwin
- To
- Mary Anne Theresa Whitby
- Sent from
- Down
- Source of text
- Lehigh University Libraries Special Collections (Honeyman Collection)
- Physical description
- ALS 2pp
Please cite as
Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 1128,” accessed on 26 September 2022, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-1128.xml
Also published in The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, vol. 4
