To J. A. H. de Bosquet 24 December 1853
Down, Farnborough, Kent
Dec. 24th 1853.
My dear Sir
I thank you very sincerely for your letter and MS.1 received a few days since: I am, however, really sorry that you should have had the expence and trouble of sending them to me. Your Plates are quite beautiful: they strike me as in every way truly admirable. Think of my case, who cannot draw; and when the drawings are made, have then to see that they are engraved: think of my case; and yet you speak of losing “tout mon gout pour les sciences naturelles”! The publication of such beautiful Plates, ought to give you, indeed, infinite satisfaction.
I have read only part of your MS. but I agree, as yet, with all you say; and your descriptions seem to me excellent. I made in part of my Book one mistake, which I see, you also, have fallen into, viz. speaking of baso-&c. lateral instead of basi-lateral.2 In Plate I, fig. 6 I cannot help doubting whether this belongs to V. prisca: if you had not so named it, I should from this one view, have thought it a fixed scutum of another species of Verruca. I fear it was I who misled you3 (but I think I could not have been so forgetful) and led you to ⟨ ⟩4 V. Strömia is always marked with longitudinal ⟨ ⟩ but this is not the case, and will not ⟨ ⟩ prisca & Strömia. I think you will like ⟨ ⟩ when my Book is out, which shall be sent you, and what part of the ⟨ ⟩ and tagum5 becomes abnormally developed, when ⟨ ⟩ part of the wall of the shell. I am extremely ⟨ ⟩ engaged, but yet I hope to find time to give specific characters in my Synopsis speciorum6 of your new species. I do not suppose that the Ray Soc. will publish my work for several months. I thank you much for the sessile Cirripedes, and for their names and References. I believe B. perplexus = B. unguiformis of J. de C. Sowerby7 and B. sulcatinus, I have called bisulcatus;8 but without opercular valves it is rarely possible to identify sessile cirripedes with entire certainty. Please sometime inform me whether I must return the MS., and the sessile Cirripedes. In your mention of me you have done me very great honour.9
Pray believe me, with very cordial respect for your excellent labours. | My dear Sir | Your’s sincerely | C. Darwin.
Now that I see that you use Mitella, I much wish I had done so; but it is too late for me to change in my forthcoming Synopsis.10
P.S. I have now read half the MS. (which I suppose is very nearly all that you will publish) and I do not think that I have congratulated you enough on producing so excellent a Memoir.
Footnotes
Bibliography
Bosquet, Joseph Augustin Hubert de. 1854. Monographie des Crustaces fossiles du terrain Crétacé du Duché de Limbourg. Haarlem.
Fossil Cirripedia (1851): A monograph on the fossil Lepadidæ, or, pedunculated cirripedes of Great Britain. By Charles Darwin. London: Palaeontographical Society. 1851.
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.
Summary
Comments on MS of JAHdeB’s work ["Crustacés fossiles du Limbourg" (1854)].
Letter details
- Letter no.
- DCP-LETT-1543
- From
- Charles Robert Darwin
- To
- Joseph Augustin Hubert de Bosquet
- Sent from
- Down
- Source of text
- DAR 143: 129
- Physical description
- C 3pp
Please cite as
Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 1543,” accessed on 29 March 2024, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-1543.xml
Also published in The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, vol. 5