To S. P. Woodward 21 March [1850]
Down Farnborough | Kent
March 21.
My dear Sir
I am extremely much obliged to you for taking the trouble to give me so clear & succint a resumè of the history of Aptychus1 with your capital little sketches. I will come sometime to the Museum, & beg you to show me some specimens.— The facts you state (& a few specimens seen by me) appear to me to render d’Orbigny’s view, a priori, so improbable, that I hope a very short inspection will suffice for me.—2 I am far from anxious to drag anything into Cirripedia; with my small powers of work the order is now enough & too much for me.—
The (3) specimens which you gave me from Norwich were very useful to me, & well exemplify Pollicipes maximus & sulcatus of Sowerby, which I consider varieties of one species of Scalpellum.—3 The two specimens from the Grey Chalk have turned out very interesting: one I have described as a new species,4 & the other is a very rare one, seen by me only in Mr Bowerbank’s collection.5 I will take care of all, hereafter to be returned to Brit. Mus.—
I have not heard from the Dover man, & I fear you have not heard from the Norwich collector.— I am very sure dozens more species of Cirripedia will turn up— I wrote from your suggestion to Mr Tennant6 & he has most kindly lent me his collection, which contains 2 valves quite new to me.
Your’s very sincerely | With thanks | C. Darwin
Kind remembrances to Waterhouse
Footnotes
Bibliography
Collected papers: The collected papers of Charles Darwin. Edited by Paul H. Barrett. 2 vols. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press. 1977.
Fossil Cirripedia (1851): A monograph on the fossil Lepadidæ, or, pedunculated cirripedes of Great Britain. By Charles Darwin. London: Palaeontographical Society. 1851.
Orbigny, Alcide d’. 1849–52. Cours élémentaire de paléontologie et de géologie stratigraphiques. 3 vols. Paris: Victor Masson.
Summary
Thanks SPW for his history of Aptychus, which makes A. D. d’Orbigny’s view [that it is a cirripede] improbable. [See Fossil Cirripedia 1: 3.]
Specimens SPW sent are very useful and interesting.
Letter details
- Letter no.
- DCP-LETT-1314
- From
- Charles Robert Darwin
- To
- Samuel Pickworth Woodward
- Sent from
- Down
- Source of text
- Barbara and Robert Pincus (private collection)
- Physical description
- ALS 4pp
Please cite as
Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 1314,” accessed on 19 April 2024, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-1314.xml
Also published in The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, vol. 4