To J. S. Henslow 10 January [1859]1
Down Bromley Kent
Jany. 10th
My dear Henslow
I am exceedingly obliged for the specimens, which with your good packing came quite safe. As I shd have had to pay more for Box per Railway, you must let me enclose the 20 stamps.2 The comb of Hornet is beautiful & interests me much, for I see each is made curved on sides in lower part, until a cell is made beyond & then is built upwards hexagonally; & this just agrees with my notion.— If next year you could get me some Hornet combs fresh with extreme growing margin not in the least injured, they would be very valuable to me. What a pretty nest of the Vespa rufa! & how very curious the cast of chalk bases. I shd like sometime to hear, whether the excavated bases were covered with paper or quite bare? I shd really be glad to know this, & whether the little cups are only apparent & marked merely by being separated from each other by hexagonal reticulation, or whether each is really concave. Will you be so kind when at Ipswich to observe this for me.
I am greatly interested in these wondrous architectural Instincts.
With many thanks | Yours most sincerely | C. Darwin
Footnotes
Summary
Thanks JSH for specimens. Comments on the structure of a hornet comb and asks JSH to obtain some fresh combs for him and to make observations for him. He is greatly interested in "these wondrous architectural instincts".
Letter details
- Letter no.
- DCP-LETT-2648
- From
- Charles Robert Darwin
- To
- John Stevens Henslow
- Sent from
- Down
- Source of text
- DAR 93: A120–A121
- Physical description
- ALS 4pp
Please cite as
Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 2648,” accessed on 29 March 2024, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-2648.xml
Also published in The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, vol. 7