To Raphael Meldola 27 September [1877]1
Down, | Beckenham, Kent. | Railway Station | Orpington. S.E.R.
Sept. 27
My dear Sir
It is impossible for F. M. to object to any thing which you have said in your very interesting little essay.—2 I just allude to Butterflies preferring certain colours at p. 317 of 2d. Edit of the Descent & to the case of 1 sp. of Castnia p. 315 which has ornamented hinder wings & displays them, whilst 2 other sp. have plain hind wings & do not display them.3 My son,4 who has charge of my library, returns home to night & then we will search for Weismann. He gives splendid case of caterpillar with coloured ocelli like true eyes, & which frightened away birds.—5
Yours sincerely | 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–.
Descent 2d ed.: The descent of man, and selection in relation to sex. By Charles Darwin. 2d edition. London: John Murray. 1874.
Meldola, Raphael. 1878. Entomological notes bearing on evolution. Annals and Magazine of Natural History 5th ser. 1: 155–61.
Weismann, August. 1876. Studien zur Descendenz-Theorie. II. Über die letzten Ursachen der Transmutationen. Leipzig: Wilhelm Engelmann.
Summary
Does not think Fritz Müller can object to anything RM has said in his essay.
Has alluded to colour preference among butterflies in Descent [1: 400–1].
Letter details
- Letter no.
- DCP-LETT-11154
- From
- Charles Robert Darwin
- To
- Raphael Meldola
- Sent from
- Down
- Source of text
- Oxford University Museum of Natural History (Hope Entomological Collections 1350: Hope/Westwood Archive, Darwin folder)
- Physical description
- ALS 2pp
Please cite as
Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 11154,” accessed on 17 August 2024, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-11154.xml