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Darwin Correspondence Project

To W. C. McIntosh   18 June 1880

Down. | Beckenham Kent

June 18th 1880.

My dear Sir

I hope that you will forgive me for troubling you with a simple question. Can you refer me to any monograph on British worms (Lumbricidæ.) by which I could find out, how many endemic species there are, and how many burrow in the earth.—1 I want further to know whether there exist any burrowing species on the grassy slopes of mountains of some considerable elevation.

I have attended a little to some of the habits of worms & intend this autumn or winter to publish an essay on the subject; & it is in this relation that I want information. My essay will be barely scientific, but the subject has amused me.— I should like to give a copy on a woodblock of the whole intestinal canal of Lumbricus:— Can you refer me to any simple figure?— Perrier in Archives. Zoolog: Exp: gives an admirable one of Urocheta, but it would be better to give (if I do give any) a drawing of Lumbricus.2

I hope that you will excuse all this trouble & I remain | My dear Sir | Yours faithfully | Charles Darwin.

Footnotes

Lumbricidae is the family of earthworms that contains most European species.
Earthworms was not published until October 1881 (Freeman 1977). A diagram of the alimentary canal of Lumbricus appeared in Earthworms, p. 18, copied from the Quarterly Journal of Microscopical Science n.s. 4 (1864): pl. 7. For Edmond Perrier’s diagram of Urochaeta (a genus of earthworms native to South America), see Archives de zoologie expérimentale et générale 3 (1874): pl. 13. CD discussed worm-castings probably from a species of Urochaeta in Earthworms, p. 121.

Bibliography

Earthworms: The formation of vegetable mould through the action of worms: with observations on their habits. By Charles Darwin. London: John Murray. 1881.

Freeman, Richard Broke. 1977. The works of Charles Darwin: an annotated bibliographical handlist. 2d edition. Folkestone, Kent: William Dawson & Sons. Hamden, Conn.: Archon Books, Shoe String Press.

Summary

Asks for information about worms.

Letter details

Letter no.
DCP-LETT-12640
From
Charles Robert Darwin
To
William Carmichael McIntosh
Sent from
Down
Source of text
DAR 146: 351
Physical description
C 2pp

Please cite as

Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 12640,” accessed on 28 March 2024, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-12640.xml

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