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Darwin Correspondence Project

To E. P. Wright   3 April [1865]

Down. | Bromley. | Kent. S.E.

Ap 3—

Dear Dr Wright

I am very much obliged for your note.1 I did not know that the Arnee had been called a Bubalus, & not knowing how well Mr Dunlop was acquainted with the animal I thought it likely that the real Buffalo & Arnee might have been confounded.2 I cannot say that I am sorry that I have troubled you, as I have thus learned the additional curious case of the shrimps.3 In the first Edition of the Origin I said that the bear which swims with open mouth & catches shrimps might be developed into a creature with a mouth as monstrous as that of a whale; my reviewers have said that I cd thus easily turn a bear into a whale, & now I can as easily turn an Arnee into a Manatee.4

With very sincere thanks for your kind expressions believe me yours truly | Charles Darwin

Footnotes

1
See Correspondence vol. 13, letter from E. P. Wright, 31 March 1865. Wright had sent CD information about a species of buffalo in India that had been observed diving for grass in flooded fields.
2
See Correspondence vol. 13, letter from E. P. Wright, 31 March 1865. The Asian water buffalo that Wright discussed is now named Bubalus bubalis; Bubalus bubalis arnee is a subspecies. Andrew Anderson Dunlop was Wright’s informant.
3
Dunlop had found that the buffaloes’ meat was flavoured by the freshwater shrimps they ingested with the grass (see Correspondence vol. 13, letter from E. P. Wright, 31 March 1865).
4
In Origin, p. 184, CD suggested that if a race of bears habitually swam in the water catching insects in their mouths (as had been observed in North America), then, in the right conditions, they might become more and more aquatic in their habits, with larger and larger mouths, until a creature was produced ‘as monstrous as a whale’. In the second edition, CD retained the description of the bear catching insects ‘almost like a whale’, but omitted further speculation (Origin 2d ed., p. 184). See also Correspondence vol. 8, letter to Andrew Murray, 28 April [1860].

Bibliography

Origin 2d ed.: On the origin of species by means of natural selection, or the preservation of favoured races in the struggle for life. By Charles Darwin. London: John Murray. 1860.

Origin: On the origin of species by means of natural selection, or the preservation of favoured races in the struggle for life. By Charles Darwin. London: John Murray. 1859.

Summary

Did not know that the Arnee had been called a Bubalus.

Thanks for information about shrimps.

Letter details

Letter no.
DCP-LETT-4802F
From
Charles Robert Darwin
To
Edward Perceval Wright
Sent from
Down
Source of text
Malmö Museer (MM 031993)
Physical description
LS 3pp

Please cite as

Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 4802F,” accessed on 5 June 2025, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/view/letters/DCP-LETT-4802F

Also published in The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, vol. 30 (Supplement)

letter

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