From F. M. Balfour [20 March – 14 April 1875]1
Stazione Zoologica | Napoli
Dear Mr. Darwin
I have given your message to Claus and also the specimens.2
The only suggestion which he can make about the one with a central disc from wh. rays pass out, is that it may be the statoblast of some fresh water Polyzoon.3 He does not however feel at all confident about it.
He thinks that the other organism, consisting of a sculptured test open at one end, is the shell of some Rhizopod probably one of the Arcellidae—4 He refers for figures to an article of Schultze’s in the tenth volume of the Archiv. fùr Micro. Anatomie.5
Professor Claus also begged me to send you his kind remembrances; & to tell you that he hopes soon to send you a copy of a paper upon ‘the Anatomy & development of Argulus foliaceus’, & also of a work on the ‘Phylogeny of the Crustaceans’.6
I was unwell for nearly a week after my arrival here, & unable to go to the station or I would have written you earlier about these organisms.
I remain | Yours very truly | F. M. Balfour
CD annotations
Footnotes
Bibliography
Allman, George James. 1855. On the signification of the so-called ova of the Hippocrepian Polyzoa, and on the development of the proper embryo in these animals. Report of the 25th meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science (1855), Transactions of the sections, pp. 118–19.
Claus, Carl Friedrich. 1875. Ueber die Entwickelung, Organisation und systematische Stellung der Arguliden. Zeitschrift für wissenschaftliche Zoologie 25: 217–84.
Groeben, Christiane, ed. 1982. Charles Darwin 1809–1882, Anton Dohrn 1840–1909: correspondence. Naples: Macchiaroli.
Summary
Gives Carl Claus’s identifications of the organisms sent by CD.
Letter details
- Letter no.
- DCP-LETT-9203
- From
- Francis Maitland Balfour
- To
- Charles Robert Darwin
- Sent from
- Naples Zoological Station
- Source of text
- DAR 58.1: 149
- Physical description
- ALS 4pp †
Please cite as
Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 9203,” accessed on 23 April 2024, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-9203.xml
Also published in The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, vol. 23