From Thomas Vernon Wollaston [16 September 1860]1
– The whole of last winter was employed in finishing off Madeiran novelties;2
so that the 50.000 Canarians are as yet almost untouched!—3 Yet in spite of this, I have once or twice been foolish enough to picture to myself the unknown treasures of the Cape de Verdes (wh. I am aching to know something about), & have even contemplated the possibility of making a desperate rush for Fogo,—wh. I feel convinced is but an outlying detached portion of the great Central African Chain, cut off from the mainland by a series of those horrible convulsions to which you have such a violent objection,—tho‘ heaven only knows why.—4 However I believe that my day-dreams (half-hatched) will (& ought to) end in smoke; & that I shall settle down like a Christian to my winter’s work in sober earnest when this Cape de Verdian panic has blown over.—
I have had some curious geographical facts made known within the last few days, touching my Atlantic forms, which have puzzled me beyond measure & await further explanation.— A large & interesting batch of S. African specimens just brought home fr. the Cape of Good Hope by my friend Bewicke5 contains a heap of my Atlantic genera, of the most peculiar types, wh. I had found in Madeira & the Canaries!!—such as Tarphius (the most eminently Atlantic form), Europs (an anomalous Euphorbia-feeder), & the nearly-blind Cossyphodes! (these out of a single tube; there is no telling how many more the 22 others will disclose).— — Hence (as far as is known) Tarphius has one representative in Sicily, 18 in Madeira, 7 in the Canaries, & 1 at the Cape!— (No doubt there would be 20 more at the C. de Verdes, & 5 or 6 in the Azores).—
I was not aware that Hooker had gone to Syria; he will certainly be massacred unless he turns Moslem,—wh perhaps however he intends to do, by way of another step gained? in the high-road of Development. How they have been pitching into you, to be sure!— I only wonder you are alive to tell the tale, & admire your pluck in proportion as I detest your Theory.—6 I read the Bishop’s notice in the Quarterly7 (it was lent me by his great friend Sir Charles Anderson),8 & chuckled over it beyond measure,—for I really did not think it ill-natured, though full of fun & caustic allusions which could not do you any harm.
You know I & Sam9 agree wonderfully well in most things, so that you will not be surprised that I assented to his reasoning (in which I hold him very high). A naturalist he is not, & does not profess to be; nevertheless it did not strike me that there was anything even in his facts to which
CD annotations
Footnotes
Bibliography
Correspondence: The correspondence of Charles Darwin. Edited by Frederick Burkhardt et al. 29 vols to date. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1985–.
Origin: On the origin of species by means of natural selection, or the preservation of favoured races in the struggle for life. By Charles Darwin. London: John Murray. 1859.
[Wilberforce, Samuel.] 1860. [Review of Origin.] Quarterly Review 108: 225–64.
Wollaston, Thomas Vernon. 1854. Insecta Maderensia; being an account of the insects of the islands of the Madeiran group. London: John van Voorst.
Wollaston, Thomas Vernon. 1857. Catalogue of the coleopterous insects of Madeira in the collection of the British Museum. London: By order of the Trustees.
[Wollaston, Thomas Vernon]. 1860a. Review of Origin of species. Annals and Magazine of Natural History 3d ser. 5: 132–43. Reprinted in Hull 1973, pp. 127–40. [Vols. 6,7,8]
Wollaston, Thomas Vernon. 1864. Catalogue of the coleopterous insects of the Canaries in the collection of the British Museum. London: By order of the Trustees.
Summary
Has received a batch of S. African specimens which contain many of the Atlantic genera he found in Madeira and the Canaries.
Letter details
- Letter no.
- DCP-LETT-2919
- From
- Thomas Vernon Wollaston
- To
- Charles Robert Darwin
- Sent from
- unstated
- Source of text
- DAR 205.3: 302
- Physical description
- AL inc †
Please cite as
Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 2919,” accessed on 21 May 2024, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-2919.xml
Also published in The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, vol. 8