From Albert Günther 21 May 1872
Surbiton
21.5.72
My dear Mr Darwin
Carbonnier’s paper is known to me, and I have noticed it in Zoolog. Record VI. p. 133. & VII. p. 94. Macropus is a fish belonging to the family of Labyrinthici, the members of which are more or less domesticated in the East Indies, and I am sure (although I cannot prove it here in Europe) that many of the species and even genera recognized in our Catalogues are the products of domesticity.1 For that reason I recommended on a former occasion (Ann. & Mag. Nat. Hist. 1861. May, in a paper on Mugil) these fishes for acclimatization in Europe. The “Pla-Kat” mentioned by me there is most closely allied to “Macropus”.2
I have just finished the Record for 1871; and right glad I am of it; I trust I shall now find time of reading Gegenbaur’s paper with attention.3 In the Museum I have to look at present after many things about which I did not care formerly: Owen, Gray, Smith and Butler are on the sick-list, evidently under the influence of the shocking weather we have had.4
My own affairs are now all arranged as far as I am concerned; and I quietly wait for the issue of which I may hear in about four weeks.5 At all events I have the great satisfaction to have learned that my fellow-labourers hold me in higher esteem than I ever fancied; and if only half is fact what they have said in their testimonials, I was wrong in thinking that the success of my labours had never equalled my good intentions.
Yours ever truly | A Günther
Footnotes
Bibliography
Descent 2d ed.: The descent of man, and selection in relation to sex. By Charles Darwin. 2d edition. London: John Murray. 1874.
Gegenbaur, Carl. 1872. Ueber das Archipterygium. Jenaische Zeitschrift für Medizin und Naturwissenschaft 7 (1871–3): 131–41.
Günther, Albert Charles Lewis Gotthilf. 1861. On the British species of Mugil, or grey mullets. Annals and Magazine of Natural History 3d ser. 7: 345–52.
Pauly, Daniel. 2004. Darwin’s fishes. An encyclopedia of ichthyology, ecology, and evolution. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Summary
Believes many of the species and even genera of the fish family Labyrinthici are products of domestication.
Events at the British Museum.
Letter details
- Letter no.
- DCP-LETT-8344
- From
- Albrecht Carl Ludwig Gotthilf (Albert) Günther
- To
- Charles Robert Darwin
- Sent from
- Surbiton
- Source of text
- DAR 165: 251
- Physical description
- ALS 4pp
Please cite as
Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 8344,” accessed on 19 April 2024, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-8344.xml
Also published in The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, vol. 20