To T. H. Huxley 13 September [1854]
Down Farnborough Kent
Sept. 13th
My dear Sir
I thank you much for your two notes & am quite sorry that you shd. have had the trouble of writing two.— This note requires no answer & can give no trouble.— As Leydig seemed a puzzler to reach, I have sent a copy to Kölliker instead of to him, & to C. Vogt,1 & now all my copies are gone, & once again I thank you for your very valuable assistance.
I write now chiefly to say that if time & inclination leads you to look at any Balanus, do pray look at cementing apparatus, I am sure you wd. find it curious & worth looking at, & I shd. much like some naturalist to see it.2 If you are so inclined do not look at the coast Bal. balanoides, but a (young) white Balanus Bal. crenatus common on crabs & shells from deepish water: remove shell, leaving [c.] basis attached, & then dissolve it with its calcareous support in weak acid, then look with compound microscope & see antennæ of pupa, wonderful cement-glands & cement-ducts.
If you do anything more, do look at my acoustic vesicle,3 eyes & nervous system in the large Bal. perforatus so common at Tenby. I have only casually looked at these parts in these species.—
My dear Sir | Pray believe me | Yours sincerely | C. Darwin
Pray give to whomever you like, the second copy of my Book which you have.—4
If you stumble on Scalpellum vulgare do look at the Comp. Males.—
Footnotes
Bibliography
Correspondence: The correspondence of Charles Darwin. Edited by Frederick Burkhardt et al. 29 vols to date. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1985–.
Living Cirripedia (1854): A monograph of the sub-class Cirripedia, with figures of all the species. The Balanidæ (or sessile cirripedes); the Verrucidæ, etc. By Charles Darwin. London: Ray Society. 1854.
Olfers, Ignaz Franz Werner Maria von. 1818. Ueber die Linneischen Gattungen Chiton und Lepas. Gesellschaft naturforschender Freunde zu Berlin. Magazin für die neuesten Entdeckungen in der gesammten Naturkunde 8: 163–78.
Summary
Thanks for help on presentation copies of Living Cirripedia, vol. 2.
Suggests he examine cementing apparatus of Balanus.
Letter details
- Letter no.
- DCP-LETT-1592
- From
- Charles Robert Darwin
- To
- Thomas Henry Huxley
- Sent from
- Down
- Source of text
- Imperial College of Science, Technology, and Medicine Archives (Huxley 5: 16)
- Physical description
- ALS 4pp
Please cite as
Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 1592,” accessed on 14 August 2024, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-1592.xml
Also published in The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, vol. 5