To W. B. Tegetmeier 15 February [1868]
Summary
Is much obliged that WBT will undertake tabulation of sex ratios in racehorses, greyhounds, and cattle.
| Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Addressee: | William Bernhard Tegetmeier |
| Date: | 15 Feb [1868] |
| Classmark: | Archives of the New York Botanical Garden (Charles Finney Cox Collection) |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-5879 |
To J. J. Weir 29 February [1868]
Summary
JJW’s note on birds was one of the most interesting CD has ever received. Asks several questions. CD is puzzled by cases of magpies whose mates were killed but who always immediately found others.
Alexander Wallace denies any effect of colour in sexual selection among Lepidoptera.
| Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Addressee: | John Jenner Weir |
| Date: | 29 Feb [1868] |
| Classmark: | Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-5958 |
Matches: 2 hits
- … had visited Harrision William Weir in 1856 (see Correspondence vol. 6, letter to W. B. …
- … 1856] ). He is acknowledged for providing information on pigeons in Variation 1: 132 n. 2. Weir’ s name appears on CD’s presentation list for the second printing of Variation (see Correspondence vol. 16, Appendix IV). CD refers to his publisher, John Murray . CD received information on magpies and partridges from William Reeves , a gamekeeper employed by John Lubbock . The note containing this information is in DAR 84.2: 202. See also letter …
To A. D. Bartlett 16 February [1868]
Summary
Asks ADB to perform experiment on colour perception in bower-bird.
Asks for rabbit specimens.
| Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Addressee: | Abraham Dee Bartlett |
| Date: | 16 Feb [1868] |
| Classmark: | Wellcome Collection (MS.7781/1–32 item 7) |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-5401 |
From Thomas Henry Huxley [before 30 January 1868]
Summary
Congratulations on George’s attaining Second Wrangler.
Variation has just arrived. Wishes he had two heads or a body that needed no rest.
| Author: | Thomas Henry Huxley |
| Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Date: | [before 30 Jan 1868] |
| Classmark: | DAR 166: 313 |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-5814 |
From J. D. Hooker 28 January 1868
Summary
Wollaston’s situation hopeless; he must go to Boulogne or Jersey to live. A friend will keep his collection and books together.
JDH’s opinion of Wollaston’s Coleoptera Hesperidum [1867].
Cannot read Duke of Argyll.
CD’s view of Asa Gray as foreign member of Royal Society; compares him to Candolle.
| Author: | Joseph Dalton Hooker |
| Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Date: | 28 Jan 1868 |
| Classmark: | DAR 102: 189–190 |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-5807 |
Matches: 2 hits
- … See Correspondence vol. 6, letter from Charles Lyell, 1– 2 May 1856 and n. 7. John …
- … letter from J. D. Hooker, [25 January 1868] . Alfred Newton . Hooker refers to Katherine Emily McMurdo , daughter of William Montagu Scott McMurdo . William McMurdo was a brother of Archibald McMurdo , first lieutenant on HMS Terror during the expedition to the Antarctic between 1839 and 1843. (Robert McMurdo, personal communication. ) Wollaston had been among the guests at a weekend party at Down in 1856 …
From Harrison Weir 28 March 1868
Summary
Recognition of colour by animals.
| Author: | Harrison William Weir |
| Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Date: | 28 Mar 1868 |
| Classmark: | DAR 84.1: 86–7 |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-6066 |
To Hermann Müller 23 February [1868]
Summary
Offers to undertake publication of English translation of Fritz Müller’s Für Darwin. W. S. Dallas will translate it.
| Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Addressee: | Heinrich Ludwig Hermann (Hermann) Müller |
| Date: | 23 Feb [1868] |
| Classmark: | DAR 146: 430 |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-5919 |
To Asa Gray 9 February [1868]
Summary
Asks that Gray forward a letter to J. T. Rothrock. Variation is selling well. Nearly all chapters were at least partially written before Origin was published.
| Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Addressee: | Asa Gray |
| Date: | 9 Feb [1868] |
| Classmark: | William Patrick Watson (dealer) (catalogue 19, 2013) |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-5851F |
From Giovanni Canestrini 8 April 1868
Summary
Reports on Prof. Cornalia’s observations on the proportion of sexes in bees, and in healthy and sick silk moths, in nature and under domestication.
| Author: | Giovanni Canestrini |
| Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Date: | 8 Apr 1868 |
| Classmark: | DAR 86: A28–9 |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-6106 |
Matches: 1 hit
- … Letter from Giovanni Canestrini, 13 March 1868 . The reference is to Emilio Cornalia . Canestrini wrote ‘Bacologen’, evidently a Germanisation of the Italian ‘bacòlogo’, a sericulturist, or breeder of silkworms (the German word is ‘Seidenraupenzüchter’). In his monograph on silkworms ( Cornalia 1856 , …
To Fritz Müller 16 March [1868]
Summary
CD arranging for a translation of FM’s Für Darwin by W. S. Dallas.
| Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Addressee: | Johann Friedrich Theodor (Fritz) Müller |
| Date: | 16 Mar [1868] |
| Classmark: | The British Library (Loan MS 10 no 22) |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-6014 |
To W. S. Dallas 11 November [1868]
Summary
A letter strongly recommending him for the post of Assistant Secretary of the Geological Society.
| Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Addressee: | William Sweetland Dallas |
| Date: | 11 Nov [1868] |
| Classmark: | Geological Society of London (LDGSL 286/8); DAR 96: 51 |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-6457 |
Matches: 1 hit
- … letter of 7 November 1868 , Dallas had asked CD to write a testimonial for him, concerning his application for the post of assistant secretary to the Geological Society of London . CD refers to the Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society of London ; the Transactions of the Geological Society of London had ceased publication in 1856. …
From Robert Buist 26 February 1868
Summary
On the pugnacity of male salmon during the spawning season.
| Author: | Robert Buist |
| Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Date: | 26 Feb 1868 |
| Classmark: | DAR 82: B76–7 |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-5937 |
Matches: 1 hit
- … letter from W. B. Tegetmeier, [before 15 February 1868] ). The Stormontfield breed ponds were established in 1853 next to the River Tay, about five miles north of Perth, for the purpose of artificially breeding salmon; the keeper was Peter Marshall ( W. Brown 1862 , pp. 29, 39). Buist refers to his The Stormontfield piscicultural experiments, 1853–1856 ( …
From Roland Trimen 20 March [1868]
Summary
On attraction of males by females in moths. H. T. Stainton mentions a case.
| Author: | Roland Trimen |
| Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Date: | 20 Mar [1868] |
| Classmark: | DAR 86: A92–3 |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-6030 |
Matches: 2 hits
- … 1856–9 , 1: 107), but it is now in the family Lasiocampidae, in the superfamily Bombycoidea ( Moths and butterflies of Great Britain and Ireland ). Trimen refers to the paper ‘On some remarkable mimetic analogies among African butterflies’ ( R. Trimen 1868 ), which he delivered at the 5 March 1868 meeting of the Linnean Society . John Lubbock and Alfred Russel Wallace (see letter …
- … letter to Roland Trimen, 21 February [1868] . Lasiocampa quercus is the oak eggar moth. Trimen also refers to Orgyia antiqua (the vapourer moth), females of which have only vestigial wings and cannot fly, but rely on pheromones to attract males. Henry Tibbats Stainton had noted this in his Manual of British butterflies and moths ( Stainton 1856– …
From George Cupples 10 August 1868
Summary
Thanks for photograph.
| Author: | George Cupples |
| Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Date: | 10 Aug 1868 |
| Classmark: | DAR 161: 286 |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-6310 |
To James Croll 24 November 1868
Summary
Comments on glaciers in North America.
Asks if glacial periods have occurred alternately in the Northern and Southern Hemispheres. Relevant to his glacial discoveries in South America: "it would have been an immense relief to my mind if I could have assumed … this". CD wishes to discuss subject in new edition of Origin [5th].
| Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Addressee: | James Croll |
| Date: | 24 Nov 1868 |
| Classmark: | DAR 143: 353 |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-6473 |
To Alfred Newton 27 February [1868]
Summary
Thanks for corrections of errors [in Variation].
| Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Addressee: | Alfred Newton |
| Date: | 27 Feb [1868] |
| Classmark: | Cambridge University Library (MS Add. 9839/1D/57) |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-5941 |
From William Henty 20 February 1868
Summary
Has read CD’s inquiry about proportional numbers of males and females born to domestic animals [see 5863] and outlines his theory regarding the factors determining the sex of offspring.
| Author: | William Henty |
| Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Date: | 20 Feb 1868 |
| Classmark: | DAR 166: 181, 183 |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-5900 |
Matches: 1 hit
- … letter has not been found in the Gardeners’ Chronicle. The reference is to William Paley’s Principles of moral and political philosophy ; the proportion of males to females is given by Paley as ‘nineteen to eighteen, or thereabouts … which excess provides for the greater consumption of males by war, seafaring, and other dangerous and unhealthy occupations’ ( Paley 1785 , p. 262). Louis Napoleon’s son, Napoléon Eugène Louis John Joseph, was born in 1856. …
From Otto Staudinger 15 May 1868
Summary
Has often thought CD would find vast material for his ideas in study of entomology and Lepidoptera. His price-list of specimens proves only that collectors of Lepidoptera catch more males than females, not that there are more. He accounts for this by the less active habits of the females. [See Descent 1: 312.]
| Author: | Otto Staudinger |
| Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Date: | 15 May 1868 |
| Classmark: | DAR 82: A103-6 |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-6174 |
Matches: 1 hit
- … letter to Otto Staudinger, 6 May [1868] and n. 4. In Descent 1: 311 and 312, CD reported, apparently erroneously, that Staudinger thought that in specimens reared from the caterpillar stage more females than males died in the cocoon. The family Cossidae (carpenter and leopard moths) and family Sesiidae (clear-winged moths) are both wood-boring in their larval stage. Staudinger wrote on the Sesiidae (Sesiae; see Staudinger 1854 and 1856). …
| letter | (18) |
| Darwin, C. R. | (9) |
| Buist, Robert | (1) |
| Canestrini, Giovanni | (1) |
| Cupples, George | (1) |
| Henty, William | (1) |
| Darwin, C. R. | (9) |
| Bartlett, A. D. | (1) |
| Croll, James | (1) |
| Dallas, W. S. | (1) |
| Gray, Asa | (1) |
| Darwin, C. R. | |
| Bartlett, A. D. | (1) |
| Buist, Robert | (1) |
| Canestrini, Giovanni | (1) |
| Croll, James | (1) |
| Cupples, George | (1) |
| Dallas, W. S. | (1) |
| Gray, Asa | (1) |
| Henty, William | (1) |
| Hooker, J. D. | (1) |
| Huxley, T. H. | (1) |
| Müller, Fritz | (1) |
| Müller, Hermann | (1) |
| Newton, Alfred | (1) |
| Staudinger, Otto | (1) |
| Tegetmeier, W. B. | (1) |
| Trimen, Roland | (1) |
| Weir, H. W. | (1) |
| Weir, J. J. | (1) |
Darwin in letters, 1856-1857: the 'Big Book'
Summary
In May 1856, Darwin began writing up his 'species sketch’ in earnest. During this period, his working life was completely dominated by the preparation of his 'Big Book', which was to be called Natural selection. Using letters are the main…
Matches: 1 hits
- … On 14 May 1856, Charles Darwin recorded in his journal that he ‘Began by Lyell’s advice writing …
Darwin and Fatherhood
Summary
Charles Darwin married Emma Wedgwood in 1839 and over the next seventeen years the couple had ten children. It is often assumed that Darwin was an exceptional Victorian father. But how extraordinary was he? The Correspondence Project allows an unusually…
Matches: 1 hits
- … Charles Darwin married Emma Wedgwood in 1839 and over the next seventeen years the couple had ten …
Dramatisation script
Summary
Re: Design – Adaptation of the Correspondence of Charles Darwin, Asa Gray and others… by Craig Baxter – as performed 25 March 2007
Matches: 1 hits
- … Re: Design – performance version – 25 March 2007 – 1 Re: Design – Adaptation of the …
Origin
Summary
Darwin’s most famous work, Origin, had an inauspicious beginning. It grew out of his wish to establish priority for the species theory he had spent over twenty years researching. Darwin never intended to write Origin, and had resisted suggestions in 1856…
Matches: 1 hits
- … Darwin’s most famous work, Origin, had an inauspicious beginning. It grew out of his wish to …
Six things Darwin never said – and one he did
Summary
Spot the fakes! Darwin is often quoted – and as often misquoted. Here are some sayings regularly attributed to Darwin that never flowed from his pen.
Matches: 1 hits
- … Spot the fakes! Darwin is often quoted – and as often misquoted. Here are some sayings regularly …
Dates of composition of Darwin's manuscript on species
Summary
Many of the dates of letters in 1856 and 1857 were based on or confirmed by reference to Darwin’s manuscript on species (DAR 8--15.1, inclusive; transcribed and published as Natural selection). This manuscript, begun in May 1856, was nearly completed by…
Matches: 1 hits
- … Many of the dates of letters in 1856 and 1857 were based on or confirmed by reference to Darwin’s …
Women’s scientific participation
Summary
Observers | Fieldwork | Experimentation | Editors and critics | Assistants Darwin’s correspondence helps bring to light a community of women who participated, often actively and routinely, in the nineteenth-century scientific community. Here is a…
Matches: 1 hits
- … Observers | Fieldwork | Experimentation | Editors and critics | Assistants …
Descent
Summary
There are more than five hundred letters associated with the research and writing of Darwin’s book, Descent of man and selection in relation to sex (Descent). They trace not only the tortuous route to eventual publication, but the development of Darwin’s…
Matches: 1 hits
- … ‘ Our ancestor was an animal which breathed water, had a swim-bladder, a great swimming …
Species and varieties
Summary
On the origin of species by means of natural selection …so begins the title of Darwin’s most famous book, and the reader would rightly assume that such a thing as ‘species’ must therefore exist and be subject to description. But the title continues, …or…
Matches: 1 hits
- … On the origin of species by means of natural selection …so begins the title of Darwin’s most …
Darwin’s reading notebooks
Summary
In April 1838, Darwin began recording the titles of books he had read and the books he wished to read in Notebook C (Notebooks, pp. 319–28). In 1839, these lists were copied and continued in separate notebooks. The first of these reading notebooks (DAR 119…
Matches: 1 hits
- … In April 1838, Darwin began recording the titles of books he had read and the books he wished to …
Darwin in letters, 1882: Nothing too great or too small
Summary
In 1882, Darwin reached his 74th year Earthworms had been published the previous October, and for the first time in decades he was not working on another book. He remained active in botanical research, however. Building on his recent studies in plant…
Matches: 1 hits
- … In 1882, Darwin reached his 74th year Earthworms had been published the previous October, and …
Before Origin: the ‘big book’
Summary
Darwin began ‘sorting notes for Species Theory’ on 9 September 1854, the very day he concluded his eight-year study of barnacles (Darwin's Journal). He had long considered the question of species. In 1842, he outlined a theory of transmutation in a…
Matches: 1 hits
- … Darwin began ‘sorting notes for Species Theory’ on 9 September 1854, the very day he concluded his …
Scientific Networks
Summary
Friendship|Mentors|Class|Gender In its broadest sense, a scientific network is a set of connections between people, places, and things that channel the communication of knowledge, and that substantially determine both its intellectual form and content,…
Matches: 1 hits
- … Friendship | Mentors | Class | Gender In its broadest sense, a scientific …
Thomas Henry Huxley
Summary
Dubbed “Darwin’s bulldog” for his combative role in controversies over evolution, Huxley was a leading Victorian zoologist, science popularizer, and education reformer. He was born in Ealing, a small village west of London, in 1825. With only two years of…
Matches: 1 hits
- … Dubbed “Darwin’s bulldog” for his combative role in controversies over evolution, Huxley was a …
Darwin in letters, 1863: Quarrels at home, honours abroad
Summary
At the start of 1863, Charles Darwin was actively working on the manuscript of The variation of animals and plants under domestication, anticipating with excitement the construction of a hothouse to accommodate his increasingly varied botanical experiments…
Matches: 1 hits
- … At the start of 1863, Charles Darwin was actively working on the manuscript of The variation of …
Darwin in letters, 1872: Job done?
Summary
'My career’, Darwin wrote towards the end of 1872, 'is so nearly closed. . . What little more I can do, shall be chiefly new work’, and the tenor of his correspondence throughout the year is one of wistful reminiscence, coupled with a keen eye…
Matches: 1 hits
- … ‘My career’, Darwin wrote towards the end of 1872, ‘is so nearly closed. . . What little more I …
4.16 Joseph Simms, physiognomy
Summary
< Back to Introduction In September 1874, the American doctor Joseph Simms, then on a three-year lecture tour of Britain, sent Darwin a copy of his book, Nature’s Revelations of Character; Or, Physiognomy Illustrated. He was seeking a public…
Matches: 1 hits
- … < Back to Introduction In September 1874, the American doctor Joseph Simms, then on a …
Language: key letters
Summary
How and why language evolved bears on larger questions about the evolution of the human species, and the relationship between man and animals. Darwin presented his views on the development of human speech from animal sounds in The Descent of Man (1871),…
Matches: 1 hits
- … The origin of language was investigated in a wide range of disciplines in the nineteenth century. …
Hermann Müller
Summary
Hermann (Heinrich Ludwig Hermann) Müller, was born in Mühlberg near Erfurt in 1829. He was the younger brother of Fritz Müller (1822–97). Following the completion of his secondary education at Erfurt in 1848, he studied natural sciences at Halle and Berlin…
Matches: 1 hits
- … Hermann (Heinrich Ludwig Hermann) Müller, was born in Mühlberg near Erfurt in 1829. He was the …
Darwin in letters, 1858-1859: Origin
Summary
The years 1858 and 1859 were, without doubt, the most momentous of Darwin’s life. From a quiet rural existence filled with steady work on his ‘big book’ on species, he was jolted into action by the arrival of an unexpected letter from Alfred Russel Wallace…
Matches: 1 hits
- … The years 1858 and 1859 were, without doubt, the most momentous of Darwin’s life. From a quiet …
