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Darwin Correspondence Project

To Fritz Müller   4 March 1879

Down, | Beckenham, Kent.

March 4th 1879

My dear Sir

I thank you cordially for your letter.1 Your facts & discussion on the loss of the hairs on the legs of the caddis-flies seem to me the most important & interesting thing which I have read for a very long time.—2 I hope that you will not disapprove, but I have sent your letter to Nature, with a few prefatory remarks, pointing out to the general reader the importance of your view & stating that I have been puzzled for many years on this very point.—3

If, as I am inclined to believe, your view can be widely extended, it will be a capital gain to the doctrine of evolution. I see by your various papers that you are working away energetically, & wherever you look, you seem to discover something quite new & extremely interesting.—4 Your Brother, also, continues to do fine work on the fertilisation of flowers & allied subjects.—5

I have little or nothing to tell you about myself. I go on slowly crawling on with my present subject the various & complicated Movements of Plants.—6 I have not been very well of late & am tired today so will write no more.

With the most cordial sympathy in all your work, believe me | Yours very sincerely | Charles Darwin

I will send you a copy of Nature.—

Footnotes

2
Müller had discussed an adaptation of the tarsi of a species of bromeliad-dwelling caddisfly (family Leptoceridae). The tarsi had lost the hair-like projections that enabled new hatchlings of river-dwelling species to swim to the surface.
4
Müller’s most recent work had focused on scent organs in butterflies (F. Müller 1878a), the cases of caddisflies (F. Müller 1878b), sexual dimorphism in Epicalia acontius (a synonym of Catonephele acontius, the Acontius firewing; F. Müller 1879a), and the morphology of caddisflies (F. Müller and Müller 1879).
5
Hermann Müller had written an introduction to Fritz’s observations on caddisflies (F. Müller and Müller 1879), but his own research continued to focus on insect adaptations that aided the fertilisation of flowers (H. Müller 1878). CD received the periodical Kosmos, to which the Müllers frequently contributed.
6
CD and his son Francis Darwin were experimenting on the physiology of movement in different plant organs; the results were later published in Movement in plants.

Bibliography

Movement in plants: The power of movement in plants. By Charles Darwin. Assisted by Francis Darwin. London: John Murray. 1880.

Müller, Fritz. 1878a. Notes on Brazilian entomology. Odours emitted by butterflies and moths. [Read 5 June 1878.] Transactions of the Entomological Society of London (1878): 211–23.

Müller, Fritz. 1878b. Sobre as casas construidas pelas larvas de insectos Trichopteros da provincia de Santa Catharina. Archivos do Museu Nacional do Rio de Janeiro 3: 99–124.

Müller, Fritz. 1879a. Epicalia Acontius. Ein ungleiches Ehepaar. Kosmos 4 (1878–9): 285–92.

Müller, Fritz and Müller, Hermann. 1879. Phryganiden-Studien (mit einer Einleitung von Herm. Müller). Kosmos 4 (1878–9): 386–96.

Müller, Hermann. 1878. Die Insekten als unbewußte Blumenzüchter. Kosmos 3: 314–37; 403–26; 476–99.

Summary

Has sent FM’s letter on caddis-fly to Nature ["On a frog and caddis-flies", Nature 19 (1879): 462–4].

Letter details

Letter no.
DCP-LETT-11915
From
Charles Robert Darwin
To
Johann Friedrich Theodor (Fritz) Müller
Sent from
London, Queen Anne St, 6 Down letterhead
Source of text
The British Library (Loan MS 10 no 48)
Physical description
ALS 4pp

Please cite as

Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 11915,” accessed on 24 April 2024, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-11915.xml

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