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From Julius Victor Carus   28 January 1868

Leipzig

Jan 28th. 1868.

My dear Sir,

As the printing of the 2. Volume goes on, rather slowly just now, I have to ask you again some questions.1

On p. 68. you mention again the egyptian Goose as Tadorna aegyptus   Of course it will be Anser.2 It didn’t strike me as some authors think, the χηναλώπηξ of the Ancients was Anser Tadorna.

P. 170. Note 109. Ann. de science. nature 2. Sér. Zoolog. This is I think a misprint for Botan., as Decaisne never wrote in the Zoological Series3

P. 229. l. 12 from above “in proportion to the white” must it not be “black”. As it stands now, you say: “the white are sluggish in proportion to the white”.4

I hope your health is pretty well.

Believe me | Yours most sincerely | Prof J. Victor Carus

CD annotations

3.2 Series] ‘(Dujardin—)’ ink
Top of letter: ‘thirteen for ourselves5 | Last sheets | Clean copy’ pencil

Footnotes

1
Carus refers to the German translation of Variation (Carus trans. 1868).
2
In Variation 2: 68, CD referred to the Egyptian goose as Tadorna Aegyptiacus; he changed the name to Anser Aegyptiacus in the second printing. The species is now known as Alopochen aegyptiaca.
3
In Variation 2: 170 n. 109, CD reported an observation of Lysimachia nummularia by Joseph Decaisne; Decaisne’s observation appeared in a zoological article by Félix Dujardin (Dujardin 1845). See CD’s annotation.
4
In Variation 2: 229, CD quoted from M. G. Lewis 1845, p. 100, on the horned cattle of the West Indies: ‘The white [cattle] are terribly “tormented by the insects; and they are weak and sluggish in proportion to the white’” (that is, the cattle were weak and sluggish in proportion to their whiteness).
5
The number may refer to the number of presentation copies: there are eleven names on CD’s presentation list for the German edition of Variation (see Correspondence vol. 16, Appendix IV).

Bibliography

Correspondence: The correspondence of Charles Darwin. Edited by Frederick Burkhardt et al. 29 vols to date. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1985–.

Dujardin, Félix. 1845. Sur le développement des méduses et des polypes hydraires. Annales des Sciences Naturelles. Zoologie 3d ser. 4: 257–81.

Lewis, Matthew Gregory. 1845. Journal of a residence among the negroes in the West Indies. London: John Murray.

Variation: The variation of animals and plants under domestication. By Charles Darwin. 2 vols. London: John Murray. 1868.

Summary

Queries concerned with translating vol. 2 of Variation.

Letter details

Letter no.
DCP-LETT-5809
From
Julius Victor Carus
To
Charles Robert Darwin
Sent from
Leipzig
Source of text
DAR 161: 66
Physical description
ALS 2pp †

Please cite as

Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 5809,” accessed on 19 April 2024, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-5809.xml

Also published in The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, vol. 16

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