From Hugh Falconer 8 January [1863]1
21 Park Crescent N.W.
8th. Jany.
My Dear Darwin,
I am charmed with the heartiness of your indignation with ‘Dirty Dick’—and your approval of the dose which I have administered to him.2 It is after all but part of the indictment—and I have let him off easy this time. But it is really apalling to see such disregard of fact—and contempt of the consequences of being shown up—in a man of Science.3 He has now got hold of a silly empty-headed young man—Carter Blake4—to work upon—for his dirty work—and he will be worse than ever. But we must drop him—or my note will be spoilt.
Many thanks for all the kind things you have been pleased to say about the Elephant paper.5 Is it not an odd thing—that there should not have been found a single Edentate—big or little either in this Pliocene or miocene Fauna of Niobrara and Nebraska;6 and fancy a Rhinoceros, said to be indistinguishable nearly from the Indian Unicorn being found, with an Indianoid Elephant & Mastodon, in the Niobrara Pliocene! the Mastodon is described by Leidy as being exactly like M. Sivalensis!7
I am very sorry to hear of the aggravated form of this Eczema and of the facility with which you are knocked up.8 But the change of a day or two to London might be useful, in interrupting the established routine of your sufferings. If you do not come up, I must run down for a day to see you.9
Your ‘dimorphic’ observations are of surpassing interest—and great importance.10 You will really inaugurate a new era of observation, in Botany. Instead of fiddling about the varieties or species of Rubus & Rosa &c—the Country Botanists—an honest & intelligent class—will find, that there is a new avenue of observation opened to them, which will yield them a real reward—and at the same time advance Science. What you mention to me, of your present puzzle, is of great interest—but I am sorry to say that I cannot contribute a fact to you, in reference to what you tell me of your observation on the Melastomas.11 When the mind has been unstrung for 8 or 10 years, from Botanical observations many facts—pass out of recollection12
With kindest regards | My Dear Darwin | Yours very Sinly | H Falconer
Footnotes
Bibliography
Correspondence: The correspondence of Charles Darwin. Edited by Frederick Burkhardt et al. 29 vols to date. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1985–.
‘Dimorphic condition in Primula’: On the two forms, or dimorphic condition, in the species of Primula, and on their remarkable sexual relations. By Charles Darwin. [Read 21 November 1861.] Journal of the Proceedings of the Linnean Society (Botany) 6 (1862): 77–96. [Collected papers 2: 45–63.]
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.
Haughton, W. 1862. On the unicorn of the ancients. Annals and Magazine of Natural History 3d ser. 10: 363–70.
Leidy, Joseph. 1858. Notice of remains of extinct Vertebrata, from the valley of the Niobrara River, collected during the exploring expedition of 1857, in Nebraska, under the command of Lieut. G. K. Warren, US Top. Eng., by Dr F. V. Hayden, geologist to the expedition. Proceedings of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia 10: 20–9. [Vols. 10,11]
‘Two forms in species of Linum’: On the existence of two forms, and on their reciprocal sexual relation, in several species of the genus Linum. By Charles Darwin. [Read 5 February 1863.] Journal of the Proceedings of the Linnean Society (Botany) 7 (1864): 69–83. [Collected papers 2: 93–105.]
Summary
Comments on his elephant paper
and CD’s observations on dimorphism in Melastomataceae.
Letter details
- Letter no.
- DCP-LETT-3908
- From
- Hugh Falconer
- To
- Charles Robert Darwin
- Sent from
- London, Park Crescent, 21
- Source of text
- DAR 164: 11
- Physical description
- ALS 4pp
Please cite as
Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 3908,” accessed on 8 May 2024, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-3908.xml
Also published in The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, vol. 11