To A. R. Wallace 22 September [1865]1
Down. | Bromley. | Kent. S.E.
Sep 22
Dear Wallace
I am much obliged for your extract;2 I never heard of such a case, though such a variation is perhaps the most likely of any to occur in a state of nature & be inherited, inasmuch as all domesticated birds present races with a tuft or with reversed feathers on their heads. I have sometimes thought that the progenitor of the whole class must have been a crested animal.
Do you make any progress with your journal of travels?3 I am the more anxious that you shd do so as I have lately read with much interest some papers by you on the Ouran Outang &c—in the Annals of which I have lately been reading the latter volumes.4 I have always thought that Journals of this nature do considerable good by advancing the taste for Natural history; I know in my own case that nothing ever stimulated my zeal so much as reading Humboldt’s Personal Narrative.5
I have not yet recd the last part of Linn. Tran. but your paper at present will be rather beyond my strength,6 for tho’ somewhat better I can as yet do hardly anything but lie on the sofa & be read aloud to. By the way have you read Tyler & Lecky.7 Both these books have interested me much. I suppose you have read Lubbock.8 In the last Chap. there is a note about you in which I most cordially concur.9 I see you were at the Brit. Assoc. but I have heard nothing of it except what I have picked up in the Reader.10 I have heard a rumour that the Reader is sold to the Anthrop. Soc.11 If you do not begrudge the trouble of another note (for my sole channel of news thro’ Hooker is closed by his illness)12 I shd much like to hear whether the Reader is thus sold. I shd be very sorry for it as the paper wd thus become sectional in its tendency. If you write tell me what you are doing yourself.
The only news which I have about the Origin is that Fritz Müller published a few months ago a remarkable book in its favour13 & 2ndly that a 2nd French edition is just coming out14
Believe me dear Wallace | yours very sincerely | Ch. Darwin
Footnotes
Bibliography
Autobiography: The autobiography of Charles Darwin 1809–1882. With original omissions restored. Edited with appendix and notes by Nora Barlow. London: Collins. 1958.
Correspondence: The correspondence of Charles Darwin. Edited by Frederick Burkhardt et al. 29 vols to date. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1985–.
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.
Humboldt, Alexander von. 1814–29. Personal narrative of travels to the equinoctial regions of the New Continent, during the years 1799–1804. By Alexander de Humboldt and Aimé Bonpland. Translated into English by Helen Maria Williams. 7 vols. London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, & Brown; J. Murray; H. Colburn.
Lecky, William Edward Hartpole. 1865. History of the rise and influence of the spirit of rationalism in Europe. 2 vols. London: Longman, Green, Longman, Roberts, & Green.
Marginalia: Charles Darwin’s marginalia. Edited by Mario A. Di Gregorio with the assistance of Nicholas W. Gill. Vol. 1. New York and London: Garland Publishing. 1990.
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.
Phillips, John. 1865. Address of the president. Report of the thirty-fifth meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science held at Birmingham, pp. li–lxvii.
Tylor, Edward Burnett. 1865. Researches into the early history of mankind and the development of civilization. London: John Murray.
Wallace, Alfred Russel. 1905. My life: a record of events and opinions. 2 vols. London: Chapman & Hall.
Summary
Crests as inherited variations; domesticated birds.
Belief in value of travel journals.
Current reading.
Letter details
- Letter no.
- DCP-LETT-4896
- From
- Charles Robert Darwin
- To
- Alfred Russel Wallace
- Sent from
- Down
- Source of text
- The British Library (Add. MS 46434 f. 56)
- Physical description
- LS 6pp
Please cite as
Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 4896,” accessed on 19 May 2024, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-4896.xml
Also published in The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, vol. 13