From Raphael Meldola 24 March 1873
21 John Street, | Bedford Row, W.C.
March 24th. 1873
Dear Sir,
At a meeting of the Entomological Society last Monday evening Mr. Bates put your questions on ocelli to the Members present.1
I looked through my collection of butterflies to-day to see if any difference existed in the ocelli of the two sexes of any species possessing this marking. The only difference I could find was in our common Satyrus Tithonus.2 The ocellus in this species consists of a black spot with two central white dots. In the ♂ the dots are situated one beneath the other thus
In the ♀ the dots are much more obliquely placed—
The difference is a trifling one but so far as I know has not been observed before. It is moreover a constant sexual character in all specimens that have come under my notice.
My time is so much engaged at present that my researches in mimetic analogy & protective resemblance progress but slowly. The results I have arrived at I propose to publish in a series of papers. The first instalment will appear in the next part of the Proc. Zoo. Soc.3
I must apologise for troubling you with so small a matter but every natural fact has a meaning for those who can & will decipher it.
Yours respectfully, | R. Meldola.
C. Darwin Esq. M.A, F.R.S.
P.S. I notice with pleasure the recent influx of papers on subjects connected with evolution to the Royal Society.
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–.
Descent 2d ed.: The descent of man, and selection in relation to sex. By Charles Darwin. 2d edition. London: John Murray. 1874.
Meldola, Raphael. 1873. On a certain class of cases of variable protective colouring in insects. [Read 4 February 1873.] Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London (1873): 153–62.
Summary
Gives some information on variation of ocelli between sexes in butterfly species.
Proposes publishing a series of papers on mimicry.
Letter details
- Letter no.
- DCP-LETT-8821
- From
- Raphael Meldola
- To
- Charles Robert Darwin
- Sent from
- London, John St, 21
- Source of text
- DAR 89: 83–4
- Physical description
- ALS 3pp †
Please cite as
Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 8821,” accessed on 24 April 2024, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-8821.xml
Also published in The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, vol. 21