To Roland Trimen 14 April [1868]1
Down. | Bromley. | Kent. S.E.
April 14th.—
My dear Mr Trimen
It is very kind of you to take the trouble of making so long an extract, which I am very glad to possess, as the case is certainly a very striking one.2 Blanchard’s argument about the males not smelling the females, because we can perceive no odour, seems to me curiously weak.3 It is wonderful that he shd not have remembered at what great distances Deer & many other animals can scent the cleanest man.—
Many thanks for your Photograph, & I send mine, but it is a hideous affair—merely a modified, hardly an improved, Gorilla.—4
Mr Doubleday has suggested a capital scheme for estimating the number of sexes in Lepidoptera, viz by a German List, in which in many cases the sexes are differently priced.5 With Butterflies, out of a list of about 300 Sp. & Vars. 114 have sexes of different prices, & in all of these, with one single exception, the male is the cheapest. On an average judging from price for every 100 females of each species there ought to be 143 males of the same species.— So I firmly believe that you field collectors are correct.— Nearly the same result with moths.
I sincerely wish you health, happiness & success in Nat. History in S. Africa.6 I should have much liked to have asked you, if you could have spared time, to come down here for a day or two; but Mrs. Huxley is coming here in a few days with all her six children & nurses, for health sake, & stays some weeks. And our House will be, with others, so absolutely full, that today we have had to tell our Brother-in-law, that we cannot possibly receive him.—7
Most truly do I thank you for your great kindness in aiding me in so many ways.8 Yesterday I was working in much of your information.—
Believe me | Yours very sincerely | C. Darwin
Footnotes
Bibliography
Blanchard, Emile. 1868. Métamorphoses moeurs et instincts des insectes (insectes, myriapodes, arachnides, crustacées). Paris: Germer Baillière.
Summary
Has tried using dealers’ price-lists as a guide to sex ratios in Lepidoptera; finds numerous cases in which the sexes bring different prices and in virtually all of them the males are cheaper. This seems to confirm the impression of the field collectors.
Wishes RT good luck with natural history in S. Africa.
Letter details
- Letter no.
- DCP-LETT-6117
- From
- Charles Robert Darwin
- To
- Roland Trimen
- Sent from
- Down
- Source of text
- Royal Entomological Society (Trimen papers, box 21: 68)
- Physical description
- ALS 4pp
Please cite as
Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 6117,” accessed on 26 September 2022, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-6117.xml
Also published in The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, vol. 16