To Raphael Meldola 22 September [1877]
Down, | Beckenham, Kent. | Railway Station | Orpington. S.E.R.
Sept. 22d
My dear Sir
I am doubtful whether speculations in a letter ought to be published, especially after a long interval of time.1 Any fact which he states, I feel pretty sure he wd. not at all object being used by anyone.— Pray do the best you can.— I shd. grieve beyond measure to be accused of a breach of confidence.— He has lately, as I mentioned, thrown much light on the first steps in mimickry.—2
With respect to dimorphic Butterflies, those about which I have read appear at different seasons, & have been the subject of an admirable essay by Prof. Weismann. It is some little time since I read the essay & one subject drives another out of my head, but I think he explains all such cases by the direct inherited effects of temperature.3 He tried experiments. If you read German, I believe I cd find Weismanns essays & lend them to you.
In your present interesting case I really do not know what to think: it seems rather bold to attribute the 2 coloured forms to nat selection, before some advantage can be pointed out.— May not the female revert in some cases?? I do not doubt that the intermediate form cd. be eliminated as you suggest.
I wish that my opinion cd. have been of any value.—
I remain | Yours very faithfully | Ch. Darwin
Footnotes
Bibliography
Correspondence: The correspondence of Charles Darwin. Edited by Frederick Burkhardt et al. 29 vols to date. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1985–.
Summary
Thinks the facts in Fritz Müller’s letter could be published.
Recommends August Weismann’s essay on dimorphism ["Über den Saison-Dimorphismus der Schmetterlinge", Studien zur Descendenz-Theorie 1 (1875)]
and has no doubt that intermediate forms could be eliminated as RM suggests.
Letter details
- Letter no.
- DCP-LETT-11148
- From
- Charles Robert Darwin
- To
- Raphael Meldola
- Sent from
- Down
- Postmark
- SP 23 77
- Source of text
- Oxford University Museum of Natural History (Hope Entomological Collections 1350: Hope/Westwood Archive, Darwin folder)
- Physical description
- ALS 4pp
Please cite as
Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 11148,” accessed on 31 August 2024, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-11148.xml