Volume 1

More letters of Charles Darwin : a record of his work in a series of hitherto unpublished letters / edited by Francis Darwin ... and A.C. Seward.

  • Charles Darwin
Date:
1903
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: More letters of Charles Darwin : a record of his work in a series of hitherto unpublished letters / edited by Francis Darwin ... and A.C. Seward. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    1809—^42] small show hundreds of species make. The box contains Letter 3 a good many geological specimens ; I am well aware that the greater number are too small. But I maintain that no person has a right to accuse me, till he has tried carrying rocks under a tropical sun. I have endeavoured to get specimens of every variety of rock, and have written notes upon all. If you think it worth your while to examine any of them I shall be very glad of some mineralogical information, especially on any numbers between 1 and 254 which include Santiago rocks. By my catalogue I shall know which you may refer to. As for my plants, “ pudet pigetque mihi.” All I can say is that when objects are present which I can observe and particularise about, I cannot summon resolution to collect when I know nothing. It is positively distressing to walk in the glorious forest amidst such treasures and feel they are all thrown away upon one. My collection from the Abrolhos is interesting, as I suspect it nearly contains the whole flowering vegetation— and indeed from extreme sterility the same may almost be said of Santiago. I have sent home four bottles with animals in spirits, I have three more, but would not send them till I had a fourth. I shall be anxious to hear how they tare. I made an enormous collection of Arachnidae at Rio, also a good many small beetles in pill boxes, but it is not the best time of year for the latter. Amongst the lower animals nothing has so much interested me as finding two species of elegantly coloured true Planaria inhabiting the dewy forest! The false relation they bear to snails is the most extraordinary thing of the kind I have ever seen. In the same genus (or more truly family) some of the marine species possess an organisation so marvellous that I can scarcely credit my eyesight. Every one has heard of the discoloured streaks of water in the equatorial regions. One I examined was owing to the presence of such minute Oscillarice that in each square inch of surface there must have been at least one hundred thousand present. After this I had better be silent, for you will think me a Baron Munchausen amongst naturalists. Most assuredly I might collect a far greater number of specimens of Invertebrate animals if I took less time over each ; but I have come to the conclusion that two animals with their original colour
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