To H. W. Bates 4 March [1863]1
Down Bromley Kent
Mar 4—
Dear Bates
I heard from Asa Gray a week ago,2 & must have the pleasure of sending you a copy of part of his letter. “The copy of Bates’s paper addressed to me by the author has come.3 I am by no means clear that I shall pass it on to Haldimann,4 certainly not just yet. I have run thro’ it. It is fascinating he at least is a full believer in Nat. Selection & the illustrations he brings to your aid are the prettiest possible.5 I keep it in pickle along with Decandolle on oaks6 & some other matters to make the subject of the evening for our Scientific Society which meets with me a fortnight hence,7 when I hope to torment Agassiz delightfully,8 and then I will myself draw up an abstract of the interesting matter for Silliman, but it is too late for the March number.”9
I have been rather extra unwell for the last ten days so write this by dictation.10 Don’t trouble yourself to acknowledge this. I hope Book goes on well.—11
Yours sincerely | C. Darwin
About Agassiz is of course private.
Footnotes
Bibliography
Bates, Henry Walter. 1861. Contributions to an insect fauna of the Amazon valley. Lepidoptera: Heliconidæ. [Read 21 November 1861.] Transactions of the Linnean Society of London 23 (1860–2): 495–566.
Bates, Henry Walter. 1863. The naturalist on the River Amazons. A record of adventures, habits of animals, sketches of Brazilian and Indian life, and aspects of nature under the equator, during eleven years of travel. 2 vols. London: John Murray.
Correspondence: The correspondence of Charles Darwin. Edited by Frederick Burkhardt et al. 29 vols to date. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1985–.
Dupree, Anderson Hunter. 1959. Asa Gray, 1810–1888. Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University.
Summary
CD relates Asa Gray’s pleasure over HWB’s paper and Gray’s plans to write abstract [Am. J. Sci. 2d ser. 36 (1863): 285–90].
Letter details
- Letter no.
- DCP-LETT-4022
- From
- Charles Robert Darwin
- To
- Henry Walter Bates
- Sent from
- Down
- Source of text
- Cleveland Health Sciences Library (Robert M. Stecher collection)
- Physical description
- LS(A) 4pp
Please cite as
Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 4022,” accessed on 28 March 2024, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-4022.xml
Also published in The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, vol. 11