From Frederick Smith 10 November 1857
British Museum.
10 Novr. 1857
My dear Sir
Some time ago you asked me to furnish you with remarkable instances of desparity in form etc—in workers of Insects living in community—1 As one is apt to forget these things at the moment they are asked for I send you one that is a truly remarkable instance— In my Monograph on the Genus Cryptocerus I figured & described a species as C. discocephalus—2 some time subsequent I received a letter from Mr. H. W. Bates from Brazil—3 he said—“I have met with your curious species C. discocephalus— the creature figured is only the large size of the worker of the species— I send you both the workers taken from several nests constructed in dead branches of shrubs—”
I send you tracings of the creatures in relative proportion— dont trouble to reply to this but tell me what you think of it when you are next time at the Museum4 and believe me
Yours very truly | Fredk Smith Chas. Darwin Esqre
CD annotations
Footnotes
Bibliography
DNB: Dictionary of national biography. Edited by Leslie Stephen and Sidney Lee. 63 vols. and 2 supplements (6 vols.). London: Smith, Elder & Co. 1885–1912. Dictionary of national biography 1912–90. Edited by H. W. C. Davis et al. 9 vols. London: Oxford University Press. 1927–96.
Natural selection: Charles Darwin’s Natural selection: being the second part of his big species book written from 1856 to 1858. Edited by R. C. Stauffer. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1975.
Smith, Frederick. 1854. Essay on the genera and species of British Formicidæ. [Read 4 December 1854.] Transactions of the Entomological Society of London n.s. 3 (1854–6): 95–135.
Summary
Sends drawings of two forms of workers of Cryptocerus discocephalus in response to CD’s request for examples of insects whose workers show disparity of form.
Letter details
- Letter no.
- DCP-LETT-2167
- From
- Frederick Smith
- To
- Charles Robert Darwin
- Sent from
- British Museum
- Source of text
- DAR 11.2: 65a
- Physical description
- ALS 4pp † sketch
Please cite as
Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 2167,” accessed on 28 March 2024, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-2167.xml
Also published in The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, vol. 6