To Francis Darwin 6 June [1871]1
Down
June 6th
My dear old Backy
Very many thanks for all that you have done for me.— What on earth Mivart can mean by the identity between eyes of Cephelopods & Vertebrata I cannot conceive: they must be transparent & furnished with nerves, & with a lens of some kind.2 The striking resemblance seems to be only external, as I believe is always the case when analogous or homoplastic structures are understood.
I do not want anything more from British Review.—3
I have had such an extraordinary kind letter and little Essay from Michael Foster:4 he offers to come down here to talk to me, & I have consequently begged him to come for a Sunday if so inclined, & you must come, if you possibly can, & meet him.— Is he a nice man? I hope so, for he seems inclined to like me.—
Good-bye my dear old Doctor Darwin5 | C. D.
P.S. | You have omitted one important, reference to Vol. & series & Page to Hensen’s paper in Annales des Sci Nat. as I might wish hereafter to look at it—6
Footnotes
Bibliography
Hensen, Christian Andreas Victor. 1865. Über das Auge einiger Cephalopoden. Zeitschrift für wissenschaftliche Zoologie 15: 155–242.
ODNB: Oxford dictionary of national biography: from the earliest times to the year 2000. (Revised edition.) Edited by H. C. G. Matthew and Brian Harrison. 60 vols. and index. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 2004.
Summary
Thanks for FD’s help. CD cannot conceive what Mivart means by "the identity between eyes of Cephalopods and Vertebrata".
Has invited Michael Foster to Down.
Letter details
- Letter no.
- DCP-LETT-7806
- From
- Charles Robert Darwin
- To
- Francis Darwin
- Sent from
- Down
- Source of text
- DAR 271.3: 4
- Physical description
- ALS 4pp
Please cite as
Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 7806,” accessed on 19 April 2024, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-7806.xml
Also published in The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, vol. 19
