To Fritz Müller 28 August 1870
Down. | Beckenham | Kent. S.E.
Aug 28—70
My dear Sir
I have to thank you very sincerely for two letters: one of April 25th—containing a very curious account of the structure & morphology of Bonatea.—1 I feel that it is quite a sin that your letters shd. not all be published; but in truth I have no spare strength to undertake any extra work, which though slight would follow from seeing your letters in English through the press—not but that you write almost as clearly as any Englishman. This same letter also contained some seeds for Mr Farrer which he was very glad to receive.2
Your second letter of July 3d was chiefly devoted to mimickry in Lepidoptera: many of your remarks seem to me so good, that I have forwarded your letter to Mr. Bates; but he is out of London, having his summer holiday, & I have not yet heard from him.3 Your remark about imitators & imitated being of such different sizes, & the lower surface of wings not being altered in colour strike me as the most curious points. I shd. not be at all surprised if your suggestion about sexual selection were to prove true; but it seems rather too speculative to be introduced in my book more especially as my book is already far too speculative.4 The very same difficulty about brightly coloured caterpillars had occurred to me, & you will see in my Book, what I believe is the true explanation from Wallace.5 The same view probably applies in part to gaudy Butterflies.— My M.S. is sent to Printers, & I suppose will be published in about 3 months: of course I will send you a copy.6 By the way I settled with Murray recently with respect to your Book, & had to pay him only 21£"2s"3d which I consider a very small price for the dissemination of your views: he has 547 copies as yet unsold.7 This most terrible war will stop all science in France & Germany, for a long time: I have heard from nobody in Germany, & know not whether your Brother, Häckel, Gegenbaur Victor Carus or my other friends are serving in the army.8 Dohrn has joined a cavalry regiment.9 I have not yet met a soul in England, who does not rejoice in the splendid triumph of Germany over France: it is a most just retribution against that vain-glorious, war-loving nation. As the Posts are all in confusion, I will not send this letter through France.— The Editor has sent me duplicate copies of the Revue des Cours Scientifiques, which contain several articels about my views; so I send you copies, for the chance of your liking to see them.—10
My dear Sir | Ever Yours very sincerely | Ch. Darwin
Footnotes
Bibliography
Bates, Henry Walter. 1861. Contributions to an insect fauna of the Amazon valley. Lepidoptera: Heliconidæ. [Read 21 November 1861.] Transactions of the Linnean Society of London 23 (1860–2): 495–566.
Correspondence: The correspondence of Charles Darwin. Edited by Frederick Burkhardt et al. 29 vols to date. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1985–.
Descent: The descent of man, and selection in relation to sex. By Charles Darwin. 2 vols. London: John Murray. 1871.
Heuss, Theodor. 1991. Anton Dohrn: a life for science. Translated from the German by Liselotte Dieckmann. Berlin and New York: Springer Verlag.
Orchids 2d ed.: The various contrivances by which orchids are fertilised by insects. By Charles Darwin. 2d edition, revised. London: John Murray. 1877.
Orchids: On the various contrivances by which British and foreign orchids are fertilised by insects, and on the good effects of intercrossing. By Charles Darwin. London: John Murray. 1862.
Trimen, Roland. 1864. On the structure of Bonatea speciosa, Linn. sp., with reference to its fertilisation. [Read 1 December 1864.] Journal of the Linnean Society (Botany) 9 (1867): 156–60.
Wawro, Geoffrey. 2003. The Franco-Prussian war: the German conquest of France in 1870–1871. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Summary
Mimicry in Lepidoptera.
Sexual selection.
The Franco-Prussian war.
Letter details
- Letter no.
- DCP-LETT-7310
- From
- Charles Robert Darwin
- To
- Johann Friedrich Theodor (Fritz) Müller
- Sent from
- Down
- Source of text
- The British Library (Loan MS 10 no 33)
- Physical description
- ALS 6pp †
Please cite as
Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 7310,” accessed on 19 April 2024, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-7310.xml
Also published in The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, vol. 18