To Raphael Meldola 17 April 1878
Down, | Beckenham, Kent. | Railway Station | Orpington. S.E.R.
April 17/78
My dear Sir
I shd. be very much obliged if you could get some one to name the photographs of the enclosed insect & read the enclosed letter.1 It seems a pretty, but I think not new case of protective resemblance. One might fancy that the large ocelli on the under wings were a sexual ornament.— Perhaps these photographs might be worth exhibiting at the Entomolog. Soc.—2 I do not want them returned (unless indeed Dr Zacharias wants them back, which is not probable) or the enclosed letter. A single word with the name of the genus & if possible of the species, would suffice.—
Pray forgive my troubling you & believe me yours faithfully | Ch. Darwin
I am glad that F. Müllers letter interested you.3 He has published a paper with plates on the shape of the hairs or scales on the odoriferous glands of many Butterflies, which I cd. send you, but I doubt whether you wd. care for it.—4
Footnotes
Summary
Would like to have some insect photographs identified; they seem to show pretty and new case of protective resemblance.
Letter details
- Letter no.
- DCP-LETT-11478
- 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 4pp
Please cite as
Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 11478,” accessed on 18 August 2024, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-11478.xml