My dear Sir.

I hope that you will permit me to have the satisfaction of thanking you cordially for the lively pleasure which I have derived from reading your book¹   Never have the wonderful habits of insects been more vividly described, and it is almost as good to read about them as to see them. I feel sure that you would not be unjust to even an insect much less to a man— Now you have been misled by some translator, for my grandfather. Erasmus Darwin states (Zoonomia— Vol I p. 183.— 1794) that it was a wasp (guêpe) which he saw cutting off the wings of a large fly   I have no doubt that you are right in saying that the wings are generally cut off instinctively, but in the case described by my grandfather; the wasp after cutting off the two ends of the body rose in the air and was turned round by the wind; he then alighted and cut off the wings.² I must believe with Pierre Huber that insects have “une petite dose de raison”³ In the next edition of your book—I hope that you will alter part of what you say about my grandfather.

I am sorry that you are so strongly opposed to the Descent Theory; I have found the searching for the history of each structure, or instinct an excellent aid to observation; and wonderful observer as you are, it would suggest new points to you.— If I were to write on the evolution of instincts, I could make good use of some of the facts which you give. Permit me to add that when I read the last sentence in your book, I sympathise deeply with you—⁴

With the most sincere respect | I remain dear Sir. | Yours faithfully. | Charles Darwin.

P.S. | Allow me to make a suggestion in relation to your wonderful account of insects finding their way home.⁵ I formerly wished to try it with pigeons. Namely to carry the insects in their paper ‘cornets’ about a hundred paces in the opposite direction to that which you ultimately intended to carry them; but before turning round to return to put the insect in a circular box with an axle which could be made to revolve very rapidly first in one direction & then in another, so as to destroy for a time all sense of direction in the insects. I have sometimes imagined that animals may feel in which direction they were at the first start carried. If this plan failed, I had intended placing the pigeons within an induction coil, so as to disturb any magnetic or dia-magnetic sensibility which it seems just possible that they may possess.—

C.D.