From Edward Blyth 17 April 1869
21 Chalcot Crescent, | Regent’s Pk, N.W.,
April 17/69
Dear Mr. Darwin,
Observe the above address, for I have moved into more comfortable & roomy quarters. I regret exceedingly to learn ⟨of⟩ your accident, but must nevertheless congratulate you on its being no worse.1 As for the mandrills, I saw the other day at Antwerp adult male, female, and their offspring about 3 weeks old (& remarkably large), but the grown ones were so deep in clean straw that I could not have observed their extent of bareness, even had I tried to do so. This, by the way, was an excellent device to conceal the too demonstrative and gorgeous coloured nudities of the mandrills. There is a young one ⟨ ⟩ in the Regent’s Park collection, & also a juvenile drill. I will endeavour to ascertain what you desire as soon as I can manage it, but the next private day at the B.M. is Tuesday, before which I cannot get to examine any of the contents of the cases in the public rooms.2
Have you seen the just-published portion of the Procs. Z. S.? It contains a paper by Gray on the Canidæ, in which are some remarks on natural selection which will amuse you somewhat.3
I have just received this weeks Land & Water, & in the Paris correspondent’s letter (he is the Hon. H. Bingham) you will see some notice of an article on hybrids in the Revue des Deux Mondes, which letter must be worth your looking over.4 I doubt if you will recognise me under the occasional signature of “Caviller”, writing about the Sequoia;5 but I did send a review for publication this week on a manufactured book of travels, entitled “the Ruined Cities of Zulu Land”, which I have been demolishing unmercifully so much so that I fancy the general editor (Glass) hardly likes to offend the publisher, Chapman & Hall, by putting it in!6 However, I will shew it to Chapman myself, for I suspect that he has been taken in by those fictitious travels, as the reviewer in last week’s Athenæum was decidedly, & there is a letter from the author in this week’s Athenæum which bears out my view of the matter.7 I believe that it will appear yet. You will have seen the first part of my review of Wallace’s new book, which I was obliged to write somewhat hastily, & I have yet to follow it up as I of course mean to do.8
Yours very truly, | E. Blyth
Footnotes
Bibliography
Correspondence: The correspondence of Charles Darwin. Edited by Frederick Burkhardt et al. 29 vols to date. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1985–.
Descent: The descent of man, and selection in relation to sex. By Charles Darwin. 2 vols. London: John Murray. 1871.
Walmsley, Hugh Mulleneux. 1869. The ruined cities of Zulu land. 2 vols. London: Chapman & Hall.
Summary
Will attempt to provide CD with the information requested as soon as he can.
Gives references to some recent papers and articles which might interest CD.
Is currently reviewing Wallace’s new book [Malay Archipelago].
Letter details
- Letter no.
- DCP-LETT-6699
- From
- Edward Blyth
- To
- Charles Robert Darwin
- Sent from
- London, Chalcot Crescent, 21
- Source of text
- DAR 160: 224
- Physical description
- ALS 4pp
Please cite as
Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 6699,” accessed on 22 September 2024, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-6699.xml
Also published in The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, vol. 17