From George Robert Waterhouse [February 1860]1
les sinus qui se trouvent ⟨sur le⟩ trajet de l’air, et, dès lors, les frontaux sont dans ce cas aussi bien que tous ceux qui entourent les fosses nasales; dès lors aussi, par l’écartement des deux lames de l’os, le gonflement des bosses frontales, indépendantes et séparées par un silon—“—2
I suppose you have Owen’s British Fossil Mammalia—look to pp 88 & 89 & you will find one or two remarks having reference to DeBlainvilles conclusions—3 It is true what DeB. states—that the frontal sinuses & the facial part of the skull is particularly prone to vary
⟨section missing⟩
Geo R Waterhouse
It is not true, in my opinion, that all these Fossil Cave Bears are of one & the same species— there are certainly two very distinct species— The one with the enormous frontal sinuses (U. spelæus) varies much in the development of the part in question, but there are characters in the teeth & form of the lower jaw (especially in the condyle) of U. priscus which make it easy of separation—
CD annotations
Footnotes
Bibliography
Blainville, Henri Marie Ducrotay de. 1841–55. Ostéographie, ou description iconographique comparée du squelette et du système dentaire des cinq classes d’animaux vertébrés récents et fossiles pour servir de base à la zoologie et à la géologie. 3 vols. and atlas (2 vols.). Paris: Arthus Bertrand.
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.
Summary
It is not true that all the fossil cave bears are of the same species.
Letter details
- Letter no.
- DCP-LETT-2674
- From
- George Robert Waterhouse
- To
- Charles Robert Darwin
- Sent from
- unstated
- Source of text
- DAR 47: 152
- Physical description
- inc †
Please cite as
Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 2674,” accessed on 28 March 2024, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-2674.xml
Also published in The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, vol. 8