To Anton Dohrn [after 7 February 1875]1
Down, | Beckenham, Kent. | Railway Station | Orpington. S.E.R.
My dear Dr Dohrn
Many thanks for your most kind letter. I most heartily rejoice at your improved health & at the success of your grand undertaking, which will have so much influence on the progress of Zoology throughout Europe.2 If we look to England alone what capital work has already been done at the Station by Balfour & Ray Lankester.3 By the way I was sorry to see the attack on the latter by Fol.4 In about another years time you will have another promising young naturalist with you from this country namely Mr Romanes.5 When you come to England I suppose that you will bring Mrs Dohrn, & we shall be delighted to see you both here I have often boasted that I have had a live Uhlan in my house!6 It will be very interesting to me to read your new views on the ancestry of the Vertebrates. I shall be very sorry to give up the Ascidians to whom I feel profound gratitude; but the great thing as it appears to me, is that any link whatever should be found between the main divisions of the Animal Kingdom.7 I am working very hard in getting ready for the Press a book on Insectivorous Plants;8 & the experiments on their power of digestion are I think interesting
With the most sincere good wishes | I remain my dear Dr Dohrn | Yours very faithfully | Charles Darwin
Footnotes
Bibliography
Balfour, Francis Maitland. 1874. A preliminary account of the development of the elasmobranch fishes. Quarterly Journal of Microscopical Science n.s. 14: 323–64.
Descent: The descent of man, and selection in relation to sex. By Charles Darwin. 2 vols. London: John Murray. 1871.
Fol, Hermann. 1875. Études sur le développement des mollusques. I. Sur le développement des ptéropodes. II. Du développement embryonnaire des ptéropodes. III. La période larvaire du développement des ptéropodes. IV. La métamorphose et le développement ultérieur. V. Des divers types de développement des ptéropodes comparés entre eux et avec ceux des autres mollusques. Archives de zoologie expérimentale et générale 4: 1–214.
Heuss, Theodor. 1991. Anton Dohrn: a life for science. Translated from the German by Liselotte Dieckmann. Berlin and New York: Springer Verlag.
Insectivorous plants. By Charles Darwin. London: John Murray. 1875.
Summary
The Zoological Station has already resulted in "capital work" by F. M. Balfour and Ray Lankester. G. J. Romanes is coming next year.
CD will be interested in AD’s ancestry of vertebrates. "I shall be very sorry to give up the ascidians."
Letter details
- Letter no.
- DCP-LETT-9852
- From
- Charles Robert Darwin
- To
- Felix Anton (Anton) Dohrn
- Sent from
- Down
- Source of text
- Bayerische Staatsbibliothek München (Ana 525. Ba 1120)
- Physical description
- LS 4pp
Please cite as
Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 9852,” accessed on 19 April 2024, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-9852.xml
Also published in The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, vol. 23