From Richard Hill 10 January 1859
Spanish Town Jamaica
10th January 1859.
My dear Sir,
I should have acknowledged your letter of the 22nd November by last packet had the mail not been more than ordinarily late, leaving only a day for acknowledgments.1 I shall not fail to attend to all your requests relative to the naturalized hive and the indigenous Bee,—their honey and their honey comb— A friend who has a fine apiary will put up for me the specimens of the broodless cells you require.2
Our Melipona I think on examination will be found to be different from that of Mexico.3 Living specimens were sent to Sir William Jardine by Mr Edward Chitty, now of the King’s Bench Walk Temple.4 Through him you will probably obtain some specific intelligence relating to those native bees. The honey cells are sacklets, the honey dark coloured, and the wax nearly as deep in tint as obsidian. We have a log in the Museum of our Society of Arts containing a living hive at work, and if I do not possess myself of what you desire early, I shall be able from this stock to get for you Specimens
We have the Xylocopa teredo of Lansdowne Guilding.—5 I shall see if I can procure these. They are rather scarce, but come occasionally under the notice of the Logwood cutters.
I shall enquire generally what are our variety of Social and Solitary Apidæ and let you know. Westwood I see gives us the Apis grossa, but I have never seen it.6 We have a rose-leaf-cutter bee, lining its nest with circular cuttings from the Rose as the Megachile, but in what respect it is specifically distinguished I do not know. All this ignorance serves to render your enquiry very interesting, and therefore a labour of pleasure.
With much respect, I remain | My dear Sir, | Very faithfully your obet Srvt | Richard Hill Charles Darwin Esqe FRS.
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–.
Origin: On the origin of species by means of natural selection, or the preservation of favoured races in the struggle for life. By Charles Darwin. London: John Murray. 1859.
Summary
Will secure information on indigenous and naturalised bees as CD requests.
Believes Mexican and Jamaican Melipona are different.
Letter details
- Letter no.
- DCP-LETT-2399
- From
- Richard Hill
- To
- Charles Robert Darwin
- Sent from
- Spanish Town, Jamaica
- Source of text
- DAR 166: 218
- Physical description
- ALS 3pp †
Please cite as
Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 2399,” accessed on 28 March 2024, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-2399.xml
Also published in The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, vol. 7