skip to content

Darwin Correspondence Project

To P. L. Sclater   21 [April 1861]

Down Bromley Kent

21.

Dear Sclater

As you are working at Birds of S. America,1 & for my credit sake do oblige me & look at Birds in Zoolog. of Beagle p. 67 & see what I say on the 3 species of Opetiorhynchus & consider whether I am likely to have blundered when I observed difference of Habits of the species;2 so at p. 74 on Scytalopus, when I specify difference of habits.3 I see that I have made a horrid mistake in speaking of O. parvulus, which was a name temporarily attached, I believe, to one of the forms of O. Patagonicus.4 I believe that Capt. Abbot must have confounded O. vulgaris & antarcticus,5 which, as I remarked on the spot, are most closely similar except in habits.—

I much enjoyed my talk with you.—6 This note obviously requires no answer & written chiefly to indicate my self-conceit—

Yours very truly | C. Darwin

The Opetiorhynchus from Chiloe seems case of intermediate variety7

Footnotes

Sclater may have informed CD that he was working on a catalogue of his collection of American birds (Sclater 1862). This volume served to bring together much of the information Sclater supplied in his many papers on birds of American origin, including that on the birds of the Falkland Islands (Sclater 1860–1). See n. 5, below.
Birds constituted part three of The zoology of the voyage of H.M.S. Beagle. Species descriptions were provided by John Gould; CD gave information concerning habits and habitats. The reference is to Opetiorhynchus patagonicus (a synonym of Cinclodes patagonicus, the dark-bellied cinclodes) (Tierra del Fuego), O. antarcticus (a synonym of Cinclodes antarcticus, the blackish cinclodes) (Falklands), and O. nigrofumosus (a synonym of Cinclodes nigrofumosus, the Chilean seaside cinclodes) (Northern Chile).
In Birds, p. 74, CD described and compared Scytalopus magellanicus (the Andean tapaculo) and S. fuscus (the dusky tapaculo).
In Birds, p. 67, CD discussed the differences between O. parvulus and O. vulgaris as though O. parvulus was a species in its own right rather than a variety of O. patagonicus.
In Abbot 1861, p. 154, Charles Compton Abbott claimed to have seen only one species of the genus Cinclodes (Opetiorhynchus), C. antarcticus, on the Falkland Islands. In Sclater 1860–1, p. 385, Sclater noted both C. vulgaris and C. antarcticus as being natives of the Falkland Islands.
CD was in London from 16 to 20 April 1861 (Emma Darwin’s diary). It is possible that CD met Sclater at a meeting of the Linnean Society of London that he attended.
In Birds, p. 67, CD described a long-beaked variety of O. patagonicus that inhabited the island of Chiloe.

Bibliography

Birds: Pt 3 of The zoology of the voyage of H.M.S. Beagle. By John Gould. Edited and superintended by Charles Darwin. London: Smith, Elder and Co. 1839–41.

Sclater, Phillip Lutley. 1860–1. Catalogue of the birds of the Falkland Islands. Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London 28 (1860): 383–91; 29 (1861): 45–7.

Sclater, Phillip Lutley. 1862a. Catalogue of a collection of American birds belonging to Philip Lutley Sclater, M.A., Ph.D., F.R.S. London.

Summary

Asks about species of Opetiorhynchus.

Letter details

Letter no.
DCP-LETT-3123
From
Charles Robert Darwin
To
Philip Lutley Sclater
Sent from
Down
Source of text
American Philosophical Society (Mss.B.D25.245)
Physical description
ALS 3pp

Please cite as

Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 3123,” accessed on 28 March 2024, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-3123.xml

Also published in The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, vol. 9

letter