To A. R. Wallace 31 August 1877
Summary
Response to Wallace’s article ["The colours of animals and plants", Macmillan’s Mag. (Sept 1877)] on sexual colours and "voluntary" sexual selection.
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | Alfred Russel Wallace |
Date: | 31 Aug 1877 |
Classmark: | The British Library (Add MS 46434) |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-11121 |
To A. R. Wallace 5 September [1877]
Summary
Further discussion of evidence for sexual selection. Prefers "conscious" to "voluntary" action. Distinguishes features that serve as charms and those that serve as challenges.
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | Alfred Russel Wallace |
Date: | 5 Sept [1877] |
Classmark: | The British Library (Add MS 46434) |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-11127 |
From A. R. Wallace 17 January 1877
Summary
Thanks for new edition of Orchids.
The remarkable papers of Mott on Ernst Haeckel ["On Haeckel’s history of creation", Proc. Lit. & Philos. Soc. Liverpool 31 (1876–7): 41–89].
The part played by carbon in geological changes.
Author: | Alfred Russel Wallace |
Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Date: | 17 Jan 1877 |
Classmark: | DAR 106: B132–3 |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-10801 |
From A. R. Wallace 23 July 1877
Summary
Thanks CD for Forms of flowers.
Further objections to "voluntary" sexual selection. Believes that he can explain all the phenomena of sexual ornaments and colours by laws of development aided by simple natural selection.
Excited by Thomas Belt’s "oceanic glacier river-damming" hypothesis. The last paper, "Glacial period in the Southern Hemisphere" in the Quarterly Journal of Science is particularly fine.
Author: | Alfred Russel Wallace |
Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Date: | 23 July 1877 |
Classmark: | DAR 106: B134–5 |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-11067 |
From A. R. Wallace 3 September 1877
Summary
Sexual selection, he thinks, must be left to others to settle. "Conscious" will be substituted for "voluntary" selection. Sound- and scent-producing organs attributed to "natural", not "conscious", selection.
Author: | Alfred Russel Wallace |
Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Date: | 3 Sept 1877 |
Classmark: | DAR 106: B136–7 |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-11125 |
letter | (5) |
Wallace, A. R. | (3) |
Darwin, C. R. | (2) |
Darwin, C. R. | (3) |
Wallace, A. R. | (2) |