To Lawson Tait 4 June [1875]
Summary
CD’s observations on the power of movement and transmission of motor impulses in plants. If RLT succeeds with the tails of mice, it will be "a beautiful little discovery"; CD will enjoy it the more "because some German sneered at natural selection and instanced the tail of the mouse" [see 10013].
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | Robert Lawson (Lawson) Tait |
Date: | 4 June [1875] |
Classmark: | Natural History Museum, Library and Archives (General Special Collections DC AL 1/19) |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-10009 |
To Lawson Tait 11 June [1875]
Summary
Has found that H. G. Bronn in the chapter appended to his translation of Origin cited ears and tail of mice as facts opposed to natural selection. Suggests RLT examine hairs of tails of mice for possible nerves.
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | Robert Lawson (Lawson) Tait |
Date: | 11 June [1875] |
Classmark: | DAR 221.5: 24–5 |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-10013 |
To Lawson Tait 13 June [1875]
Summary
RLT’s observations come too late, as CD’s book on Droseraceae has been printed.
Reports on his observations of ferment in secretions in Drosera rotundifolia and Drosophyllum.
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | Robert Lawson (Lawson) Tait |
Date: | 13 June [1875] |
Classmark: | DAR 221.5: 26 |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-10017 |
To Lawson Tait [after 17 June 1875]
Summary
RLT will find abundant evidence of absorption by Aldrovanda in CD’s forthcoming book [Insectivorous plants]. Congratulates him on his discovery of ferments.
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | Robert Lawson (Lawson) Tait |
Date: | [after 17 June 1875] |
Classmark: | Shrewsbury School, Taylor Library |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-10019 |
To Lawson Tait 17 [July 1875]
Summary
Informs RLT of J. D. Hooker’s work on Nepenthes ["Nepenthaceae, Cytinaceae", in Prodromus systematis naturalis regni vegetabilis by A. P. de Candolle (1873), 17: 90–116].
Has asked JDH to try secretions of pitchers that had caught no insects.
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | Robert Lawson (Lawson) Tait |
Date: | 17 [July 1875] |
Classmark: | DAR 221.5: 27 |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-10023 |
To Lawson Tait 20 July [1875]
Summary
CD returns MS of a paper by RLT. "If you have succeeded in separating the ferment, the fact is manifestly important." Asks whether RLT tested the digestive ability of fluid from pitchers without animal matter. This would be necessary to prove that there was ferment in the fluid. CD is glad to hear about the [passage?] for guiding insects; he had guessed this to be the case.
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | Robert Lawson (Lawson) Tait |
Date: | 20 July [1875] |
Classmark: | DAR 221.5: 28 |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-10080 |
To Lawson Tait 10 September [1875]
Summary
CD gives a few instances of various animals (starfish, earwigs, spiders) that take charge of their young.
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | Robert Lawson (Lawson) Tait |
Date: | 10 Sept [1875] |
Classmark: | Shrewsbury School, Taylor Library |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-10154 |
To Lawson Tait 15 August [1875]
Summary
Thanks him for his kind review of Insectivorous plants in the Spectator. Disputes Tait’s report of a Nepenthes that trapped a fly but did not digest it.
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | Robert Lawson (Lawson) Tait |
Date: | 15 Aug [1875] |
Classmark: | Leeds University Library Special Collections (Brotherton Collection, tipped into Insectivorous plants (1875): MS Misc. Letters 2) |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-10177F |
To Lawson Tait 14 October [1875]
Summary
Will be happy to present RLT’s paper on Nepenthes to Royal Society.
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | Robert Lawson (Lawson) Tait |
Date: | 14 Oct [1875] |
Classmark: | Department of Special Collections, Kenneth Spencer Research Library, University of Kansas (MS 331 box 1 folder 11) |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-10199 |
To Lawson Tait 27 November [1875]
Summary
Because CD has been unwell, he has not read RLT’s paper carefully, but it seems an important contribution to science. Hopes RLT’s chemical observations will be confirmed. It seems a great anomaly that two substances with an acid should be requisite for digestion.
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | Robert Lawson (Lawson) Tait |
Date: | 27 Nov [1875] |
Classmark: | DAR 221.5: 30 |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-10280 |
To Lawson Tait 1 December [1875]
Summary
Abstract sent to the Royal Society. It seems to CD "uncommonly clear and well-done".
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | Robert Lawson (Lawson) Tait |
Date: | 1 Dec [1875] |
Classmark: | Josh B. Rosenblum (private collection) |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-10284 |
To Lawson Tait 22 February [1876]
Summary
Herbert Spencer invented the term "survival of the fittest". CD used it but found "natural selection" more convenient.
He has often spoken of natural selection’s destruction of individuals which do not come up to "proper standards of structure", which comes to nearly the same thing as RLT’s suggested distinction.
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | Robert Lawson (Lawson) Tait |
Date: | 22 Feb [1876] |
Classmark: | Randall House, Santa Barbara (dealers) (Catalogue XXV, 1993) |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-10406 |
To Lawson Tait 2 March 1876
Summary
Thanks RLT for his letter. CD took much trouble over his two cases [regrowth of amputated supernumerary digits, in Variation] but the evidence was shaky.
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | Robert Lawson (Lawson) Tait |
Date: | 2 Mar 1876 |
Classmark: | DAR 147: 527 |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-10414 |
To Lawson Tait 25 March [1876]
Summary
RLT’s two articles in Spectator [4 Mar and 25 Mar 1876] greatly honour CD.
Tait has made a good point about "Survival of the Fittest".
Dr Rudinger’s extensive inquiries show that all eminent German surgeons are unanimous about non-growth of extra digit after amputation.
J. Kollmann has written regretting CD has given up atavism and extra digits [in 2d ed. of Variation]; gives new evidence of a rudimentary sixth digit in batrachians.
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | Robert Lawson (Lawson) Tait |
Date: | 25 Mar [1876] |
Classmark: | DAR 221.5: 33 |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-10428 |
To Lawson Tait 28 March 1876
Summary
James Paget’s scepticism about regrowth of digits. Suggests RLT experiment with amputation of digits, both extra and normal, of kittens and fowls. Fears they will fail to regrow, but, if regrowth is proved, it will be an important discovery.
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | Robert Lawson (Lawson) Tait |
Date: | 28 Mar 1876 |
Classmark: | Roy Davids Ltd (dealer) (1996) |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-10434 |
To Lawson Tait 24 April 1876
Summary
The Royal Society have returned RLT’s Nepenthes paper and will not have it read because of unfavourable reports from referees.
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | Robert Lawson (Lawson) Tait |
Date: | 24 Apr 1876 |
Classmark: | DAR 202: 84 |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-10470 |
To Lawson Tait 29 April [1876]
Summary
Sends Thiselton-Dyer’s suggestions for references to Nepenthes,
and gives his opinion on what will influence the Royal Society’s Council in considering RLT’s candidacy.
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | Robert Lawson (Lawson) Tait |
Date: | 29 Apr [1876] |
Classmark: | DAR 221.5: 36 |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-10484 |
To Lawson Tait 5 May 1876
Summary
CD sends the gist of an extremely negative report from the [Royal Society’s] physiological referee on the value of RLT’s modifications of Brücke’s process for isolating pepsin [see 10470].
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | Robert Lawson (Lawson) Tait |
Date: | 5 May 1876 |
Classmark: | Shrewsbury School, Taylor Library |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-10497 |
To Lawson Tait 6 August 1876
Summary
CD accepts membership in the Birmingham Natural History Society.
Thanks RLT for article. CD cannot quite agree that "under a theological point of view, the origin of evil is explained by survival".
Is glad RLT has not given up polydactylism.
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | Robert Lawson (Lawson) Tait |
Date: | 6 Aug 1876 |
Classmark: | DAR 221.5: 35 |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-10571 |
To Lawson Tait 17 January [1877]
Summary
CD has only a trifling point to make in criticism [of RLT’s excerpt from Diseases of women]: he believes "the high value of well-bred males is due to their transmitting their good qualities to a far greater number of offspring than can the female".
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | Robert Lawson (Lawson) Tait |
Date: | 17 Jan [1877] |
Classmark: | DAR 221.5: 37 |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-10800 |
Darwin, C. R. | (34) |
Darwin, C. R. | |
Tait, Lawson | (34) |