From A. R. Wallace [14 September 1868]1
9, St. Marks’ Crescent | N.W.
Monday Evening
Dear Darwin
I send you by post a pair of the Euchirus longimanus They are not quite perfect and are very rotten from being kept so long in open boxes but will perhaps answer your purpose.2
I send on the other side two or three notes on sexual differences which I find in an old note book, but I fear there is nothing of interest.
I have to thank you for a most agreeable visit, & my wife was so pleased3 I rather think she was sorry to be obliged to come home again.
With kind regards to Mrs. Darwin & all your family
I remain | Yours very sincerely | Alfred R. Wallace—
Euchirus longimanus.. (Amboyna, Ceram) when in motion makes a low hissing sound caused by protrusion and contraction of the abdomen. When sezed it also produces a grating sound by rubbing the hind tibiæ against the edges of the elytra.4
Callichroma dorycus. Boisd. (N. Guinea)5 I have a note that the ♂. of this musk beetle has a fine odour of ottar of roses; the ♀ having only a slight disagreeable smell.
Mutilla sp.6 (Celebes)
Winged males seize females by head or thorax, fly with them, settle & shake them violently till they submit to cop.
I have a note that the female in the genus Glenea (Longicorns)7 feigns death, the male not;—but I shd. hardly like to be sure of this.
CD annotations
Footnotes
Bibliography
Descent: The descent of man, and selection in relation to sex. By Charles Darwin. 2 vols. London: John Murray. 1871.
Index animalium: Index animalium sive index nominum quae ab @A.D. MDCCLVIII@generibus et speciebus animalium imposita sunt. By Charles Davies Sherborn. 10 vols. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. London: British Museum. 1902–32. [Vols. 10,11]
Linsley, E. Gorton. 1959. Ecology of Cerambycidae. Annual Review of Entomology 4: 99–138.
Summary
On sounds produced by Euchirus longimanus beetle. Sends a pair by post.
Letter details
- Letter no.
- DCP-LETT-6364
- From
- Alfred Russel Wallace
- To
- Charles Robert Darwin
- Sent from
- London, St Mark’s Crescent
- Source of text
- DAR 82: A25–6
- Physical description
- ALS 3pp †
Please cite as
Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 6364,” accessed on 26 September 2022, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-6364.xml
Also published in The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, vol. 16