Чарльз Дарвин
More Letters of Charles Darwin — Volume 2
1. In your letter of April 14th you mention the case of about twenty birds which seemed to listen with much interest to an excellent piping bullfinch. (445/2. Quoted in the "Descent of Man" (1901), page 564. "A bullfinch which had been taught to pipe a German waltz...when this bird was first introduced into a room where other birds were kept and he began to sing, all the others, consisting of about twenty linnets and canaries, ranged themselves on the nearest side of their cages, and listened with the greatest interest to the new performer.") What kind of birds were these twenty?
2. Is it true, as often stated, that a bird reared by foster-parents, and who has never heard the song of its own species, imitates to a certain extent the song of the species which it may be in the habit of hearing?
Now for a more troublesome point. I find it very necessary to make out relation of immature plumage to adult plumage, both when the sexes differ and are alike in the adult state. Therefore, I want much to learn about the first plumage (answering, for instance, to the speckled state of the robin before it acquires the red breast) of the several varieties of the canary. Can you help me? What is the character or colour of the first plumage of bright yellow or mealy canaries which breed true to these tints? So with the mottled-brown canaries, for I believe that there are breeds which always come brown and mottled. Lastly, in the "prize-canaries," which have black wing- and tail-feathers during their first (?) plumage, what colours are the wings and tails after the first (?) moult or when adult? I should be particularly glad to learn this. Heaven have mercy on you, for it is clear that I have none. I am going to investigate this same point with all the breeds of fowls, as Mr. Tegetmeier will procure for me young birds, about two months old, of all the breeds.
In the course of this next month I hope you will come down here on the Saturday and stay over the Sunday. Some months ago Mr. Bates said he would pay me a visit during June, and I have thought it would be pleasanter for you to come here when I can get him, so that you would have a companion if I get knocked up, as is sadly too often my bad habit and great misfortune.
Did you ever hear of the existence of any sub-breed of the canary in which the male differs in plumage from the female?
LETTER 446. TO F. MULLER. Down, June 3rd {1868}.
Your letter of April 22nd has much interested me. I am delighted that you approve of my book, for I value your opinion more than that of almost any one. I have yet hopes that you will think well of pangenesis. I feel sure that our minds are somewhat alike, and I find it a great relief to have some definite, though hypothetical view, when I reflect on the wonderful transformations of animals, the re-growth of parts, and especially the direct action of pollen on the mother form, etc. It often appears to me almost certain that the characters of the parents are "photographed" on the child, only by means of material atoms derived from each cell in both parents, and developed in the child. I am sorry about the mistake in regard to Leptotes. (446/1. See "Animals and Plants," Edition I., Volume II., page 134, where it is stated that Oncidium is fertile with Leptotes, a mistake corrected in the 2nd edition.) I daresay it was my fault, yet I took pains to avoid such blunders. Many thanks for all the curious facts about the unequal number of the sexes in crustacea, but the more I investigate this subject the deeper I sink in doubt and difficulty. Thanks, also, for the confirmation of the rivalry of Cicadae. (446/2. See "Descent of Man," Edition I., Volume I., page 351, for F. Muller's observations; and for a reference to Landois' paper.) I have often reflected with surprise on the diversity of the means for producing music with insects, and still more with birds. We thus get a high idea of the importance of song in the animal kingdom. Please to tell me where I can find any account of the auditory organs in the orthoptera? Your facts are quite new to me. Scudder has described an annectant insect in Devonian strata, furnished with a stridulating apparatus. (446/3. The insect is no doubt Xenoneura antiquorum, from the Devonian rocks of New Brunswick. Scudder compared a peculiar feature in the wing of this species to the stridulating apparatus of the Locustariae, but afterwards stated that he had been led astray in his original description, and that there was no evidence in support of the comparison with a stridulating organ. See the "Devonian Insects of New Brunswick," reprinted in S.H. Scudder's "Fossil Insects of N. America," Volume I., page 179, New York, 1890.) I believe he is to be trusted, and if so the apparatus is of astonishing antiquity. After reading Landois' paper I have been working at the stridulating organ in the lamellicorn beetles, in expectation of finding it sexual, but I have only found it as yet in two cases, and in these it was equally developed in both sexes. I wish you would look at any of your common lamellicorns and take hold of both males and females and observe whether they make the squeaking or grating noise equally. If they do not, you could perhaps send me a male and female in a light little box. How curious it is that there should be a special organ for an object apparently so unimportant as squeaking. Here is another point: have you any Toucans? if so, ask any trustworthy hunter whether the beaks of the males, or of both sexes, are more brightly coloured during the breeding season than at other times of the year? I have also to thank you for a previous letter of April 3rd, with some interesting facts on the variation of maize, the sterility of Bignonia and on conspicuous seeds. Heaven knows whether I shall ever live to make use of half the valuable facts which you have communicated to me...
LETTER 447. TO J. JENNER WEIR. Down, June 18th {1868}.
Many thanks. I am glad that you mentioned the linnet, for I had much difficulty in persuading myself that the crimson breast could be due to change in the old feathers, as the books say. I am glad to hear of the retribution of the wicked old she-bullfinch. You remember telling me how many Weirs and Jenners have been naturalists; now this morning I have been putting together all my references about one bird of a pair being killed, and a new mate being soon found; you, Jenner Weir, have given me some most striking cases with starlings; Dr. Jenner gives the most curious case of all in "Philosophical Transactions" (447/1. "Phil. Trans." 1824.), and a Mr. Weir gives the next most striking in Macgillivray. (447/2. Macgillivray's "History of British Birds," Volume I., page 570. See "Descent of Man" (1901), page 621.) Now, is this not odd? Pray remember how very glad we shall be to see you here whenever you can come.
Did some ancient progenitor of the Weirs and Jenners puzzle his brains about the mating of birds, and has the question become indelibly fixed in all your minds?
LETTER 448. TO A.R. WALLACE. August 19th {1868}.
I had become, before my nine weeks' horrid interruption of all work, extremely interested in sexual selection, and was making fair progress. In truth it has vexed me much to find that the farther I get on the more I differ from you about the females being dull-coloured for protection. I can now hardly express myself as strongly, even, as in the "Origin." This has much decreased the pleasure of my work. In the course of September, if I can get at all stronger, I hope to get Mr. J. Jenner Weir (who has been wonderfully kind in giving me information) to pay me a visit, and I will then write for the chance of your being able to come, and I hope bring with you Mrs. Wallace. If I could get several of you together it would be less dull for you, for of late I have found it impossible to talk with any human being for more than half an hour, except on extraordinary good days.
(448/1. On September 16th Darwin wrote to Wallace on the same subject: — )
You will be pleased to hear that I am undergoing severe distress about protection and sexual selection; this morning I oscillated with joy towards you; this evening I have swung back to the old position, out of which I fear I shall never get.
LETTER 449. TO A.R. WALLACE.
(449/1. From "Life and Letters," Volume III., page 123.)
Down, September 23rd {1868}.
I am very much obliged for all your trouble in writing me your long letter, which I will keep by me and ponder over. To answer it would require at least 200 folio pages! If you could see how often I have rewritten some pages you would know how anxious I am to arrive as near as I can to the truth. I lay great stress on what I know takes place under domestication; I think we start with different fundamental notions on inheritance. I find it is most difficult, but not, I think, impossible to see how, for instance, a few red feathers appearing on the head of a male bird, and which are at first transmitted to both sexes, would come to be transmitted to males alone. It is not enough that females should be produced from the males with red feathers, which should be destitute of red feathers; but these females must have a latent tendency to produce such feathers, otherwise they would cause deterioration in the red head-feathers of their male offspring. Such latent tendency would be shown by their producing the red feathers when old, or diseased in their ovaria. But I have no difficulty in making the whole head red if the few red feathers in the male from the first tended to be sexually transmitted. I am quite willing to admit that the female may have been modified, either at the same time or subsequently, for protection by the accumulation of variations limited in their transmission to the female sex. I owe to your writings the consideration of this latter point. But I cannot yet persuade myself that females alone have often been modified for protection. Should you grudge the trouble briefly to tell me, whether you believe that the plainer head and less bright colours of female chaffinch, the less red on the head and less clean colours of female goldfinch, the much less red on the breast of the female bullfinch, the paler crest of golden-crested wren, etc., have been acquired by them for protection? I cannot think so, any more than I can that the considerable differences between female and male house-sparrow, or much greater brightness of male Parus caeruleus (both of which build under cover) than of female Parus, are related to protection. I even misdoubt much whether the less blackness of female blackbird is for protection.
Again, can you give me reasons for believing that the moderate differences between the female pheasant, the female Gallus bankiva, the female of black grouse, the pea-hen, the female partridge, have all special references to protection under slightly different conditions? I, of course, admit that they are all protected by dull colours, derived, as I think, from some dull-ground progenitor; and I account partly for their difference by partial transference of colour from the male, and by other means too long to specify; but I earnestly wish to see reason to believe that each is specially adapted for concealment to its environment.
I grieve to differ from you, and it actually terrifies me and makes me constantly distrust myself. I fear we shall never quite understand each other. I value the cases of bright-coloured, incubating male fisher, and brilliant female butterflies, solely as showing that one sex may be made brilliant without any necessary transference of beauty to the other sex; for in these cases I cannot suppose that beauty in the other sex was checked by selection.
I fear this letter will trouble you to read it. A very short answer about your belief in regard to the female finches and Gallinaceae would suffice.
LETTER 450. A.R. WALLACE TO CHARLES DARWIN. 9, St. Mark's Crescent, N.W., September 27th, 1868.
Your view seems to be that variations occurring in one sex are transmitted either to that sex exclusively or to both sexes equally, or more rarely partially transferred. But we have every gradation of sexual colours, from total dissimilarity to perfect identity. If this is explained solely by the laws of inheritance, then the colours of one or other sex will be always (in relation to the environment) a matter of chance. I cannot think this. I think selection more powerful than laws of inheritance, of which it makes use, as shown by cases of two, three or four forms of female butterflies, all of which have, I have little doubt, been specialised for protection.
To answer your first question is most difficult, if not impossible, because we have no sufficient evidence in individual cases of slight sexual difference, to determine whether the male alone has acquired his superior brightness by sexual selection, or the female been made duller by need of protection, or whether the two causes have acted. Many of the sexual differences of existing species may be inherited differences from parent forms, which existed under different conditions and had greater or less need of protection.
I think I admitted before, the general tendency (probably) of males to acquire brighter tints. Yet this cannot be universal, for many female birds and quadrupeds have equally bright tints.
To your second question I can reply more decidedly. I do think the females of the Gallinaceae you mention have been modified or been prevented from acquiring the brighter plumage of the male, by need of protection. I know that the Gallus bankiva frequents drier and more open situations than the pea-hen of Java, which is found among grassy and leafy vegetation, corresponding with the colours of the two. So the Argus pheasant, male and female, are, I feel sure, protected by their tints corresponding to the dead leaves of the lofty forest in which they dwell, and the female of the gorgeous fire-back pheasant Lophura viellottii is of a very similar rich brown colour.
I do not, however, at all think the question can be settled by individual cases, but by only large masses of facts. The colours of the mass of female birds seem to me strictly analogous to the colours of both sexes of snipes, woodcocks, plovers, etc., which are undoubtedly protective.
Now, supposing, on your view, that the colours of a male bird become more and more brilliant by sexual selection, and a good deal of that colour is transmitted to the female till it becomes positively injurious to her during incubation, and the race is in danger of extinction; do you not think that all the females who had acquired less of the male's bright colours, or who themselves varied in a protective direction, would be preserved, and that thus a good protective colouring would soon be acquired?
If you admit that this could occur, and can show no good reason why it should not often occur, then we no longer differ, for this is the main point of my view.
Have you ever thought of the red wax-tips of the Bombycilla beautifully imitating the red fructification of lichens used in the nest, and therefore the FEMALES have it too? Yet this is a very sexual-looking character.
If sexes have been differentiated entirely by sexual selection the females can have no relation to environment. But in groups when both sexes require protection during feeding or repose, as snipes, woodcock, ptarmigan, desert birds and animals, green forest birds, etc., arctic birds of prey, and animals, then both sexes are modified for protection. Why should that power entirely cease to act when sexual differentiation exists and when the female requires protection, and why should the colour of so many FEMALE BIRDS seem to be protective, if it has not been made protective by selection.
It is contrary to the principles of "Origin of Species," that colour should have been produced in both sexes by sexual selection and never have been modified to bring the female into harmony with the environment. "Sexual selection is less rigorous than Natural Selection," and will therefore be subordinate to it.
I think the case of female Pieris pyrrha proves that females alone can be greatly modified for protection. (450/1. My latest views on this subject, with many new facts and arguments, will be found in the later editions of my "Darwinism," Chapter X. (A.R.W.))
LETTER 451. A.R. WALLACE TO CHARLES DARWIN.
(451/1. On October 4th, 1868, Mr. Wallace wrote again on the same subject without adding anything of importance to his arguments of September 27th. We give his final remarks: — )
October 4th, 1868.
I am sorry to find that our difference of opinion on this point is a source of anxiety to you. Pray do not let it be so. The truth will come out at last, and our difference may be the means of setting others to work who may set us both right. After all, this question is only an episode (though an important one) in the great question of the "Origin of Species," and whether you or I are right will not at all affect the main doctrine — that is one comfort.
I hope you will publish your treatise on "Sexual Selection" as a separate book as soon as possible; and then, while you are going on with your other work, there will no doubt be found some one to battle with me over your facts on this hard problem.
LETTER 452. TO A.R. WALLACE. Down, October 6th {1868}.
Your letter is very valuable to me, and in every way very kind. I will not inflict a long answer, but only answer your queries. There are breeds (viz. Hamburg) in which both sexes differ much from each other and from both sexes of Gallus bankiva; and both sexes are kept constant by selection. The comb of the Spanish male has been ordered to be upright, and that of Spanish female to lop over, and this has been effected. There are sub-breeds of game fowl, with females very distinct and males almost identical; but this, apparently, is the result of spontaneous variation, without special selection. I am very glad to hear of case of female Birds of Paradise.
I have never in the least doubted possibility of modifying female birds alone for protection, and I have long believed it for butterflies. I have wanted only evidence for the female alone of birds having had their colour modified for protection. But then I believe that the variations by which a female bird or butterfly could get or has got protective colouring have probably from the first been variations limited in their transmission to the female sex. And so with the variations of the male: when the male is more beautiful than the female, I believe the variations were sexually limited in their transmission to the males.
LETTER 453. TO B.D. WALSH. Down, October 31st, 1868.
(453/1. A short account of the Periodical Cicada (C. septendecim) is given by Dr. Sharp in the Cambridge Natural History, Insects II., page 570. We are indebted to Dr. Sharp for calling our attention to Mr. C.L. Marlatt's full account of the insect in "Bulletin No. 14 {NS.} of the U.S. Department of Agriculture," 1898. The Cicada lives for long periods underground as larva and pupa, so that swarms of the adults of one race (septendecim) appear at intervals of 17 years, while those of the southern form or race (tredecim) appear at intervals of 13 years. This fact was first made out by Phares in 1845, but was overlooked or forgotten, and was only re-discovered by Walsh and Riley in 1868, who published a joint paper in the "American Entomologist," Volume I., page 63. Walsh appears to have adhered to the view that the 13- and 17-year forms are distinct species, though, as we gather from Marlatt's paper (page 14), he published a letter to Mr. Darwin in which he speaks of the 13-year form as an incipient species; see "Index to Missouri Entomolog. Reports Bull. 6," U.S.E.C., page 58 (as given by Marlatt). With regard to the cause of the difference in period of the two forms, Marlatt (pages 15, 16) refers doubtfully to difference of temperature as the determining factor. Experiments have been instituted by moving 17-year eggs to the south, and vice versa with 13-year eggs. The results were, however, not known at the time of publication of Marlatt's paper.)
I am very much obliged for the extracts about the "drumming," which will be of real use to me.
I do not at all know what to think of your extraordinary case of the Cicadas. Professor Asa Gray and Dr. Hooker were staying here, and I told them of the facts. They thought that the 13-year and the 17-year forms ought not to be ranked as distinct species, unless other differences besides the period of development could be discovered. They thought the mere rarity of variability in such a point was not sufficient, and I think I concur with them. The fact of both the forms presenting the same case of dimorphism is very curious. I have long wished that some one would dissect the forms of the male stag-beetle with smaller mandibles, and see if they were well developed, i.e., whether there was an abundance of spermatozoa; and the same observations ought, I think, to be made on the rarer form of your Cicada. Could you not get some observer, such as Dr. Hartman (453/2. Mr. Walsh sent Mr. Darwin an extract from Dr. Hartman's "Journal of the doings of a Cicada septendecim," in which the females are described as flocking round the drumming males. "Descent of Man" (1901), page 433.), to note whether the females flocked in equal numbers to the "drumming" of the rarer form as to the common form? You have a very curious and perplexing subject of investigation, and I wish you success in your work.
LETTER 454. TO A.R. WALLACE. Down, June 15th {1869?}.
You must not suppose from my delay that I have not been much interested by your long letter. I write now merely to thank you, and just to say that probably you are right on all the points you touch on, except, as I think, about sexual selection, which I will not give up. My belief in it, however, is contingent on my general belief in sexual selection. It is an awful stretcher to believe that a peacock's tail was thus formed; but, believing it, I believe in the same principle somewhat modified applied to man.
LETTER 455. TO G.H.K. THWAITES. Down, February 13th {N.D.}
I wrote a little time ago asking you an odd question about elephants, and now I am going to ask you an odder. I hope that you will not think me an intolerable bore. It is most improbable that you could get me an answer, but I ask on mere chance. Macacus silenus (455/1. Macacus silenus L., an Indian ape.) has a great mane of hair round neck, and passing into large whiskers and beard. Now what I want most especially to know is whether these monkeys, when they fight in confinement (and I have seen it stated that they are sometimes kept in confinement), are protected from bites by this mane and beard. Any one who watched them fighting would, I think, be able to judge on this head. My object is to find out with various animals how far the mane is of any use, or a mere ornament. Is the male Macacus silenus furnished with longer hair than the female about the neck and face? As I said, it is a hundred or a thousand to one against your finding out any one who has kept these monkeys in confinement.
LETTER 456. TO F. MULLER. Down, August 28th {1870}.
I have to thank you very sincerely for two letters: one of April 25th, containing a very curious account of the structure and morphology of Bonatea. I feel that it is quite a sin that your letters should 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.
Your second letter, of July 5th, was chiefly devoted to mimicry 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, and I have not yet heard from him. Your remark about imitators and imitated being of such different sizes, and the lower surface of the wings not being altered in colour, strike me as the most curious points. I should 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. The very same difficulty about brightly coloured caterpillars had occurred to me, and you will see in my book what, I believe, is the true explanation from Wallace. The same view probably applies in part to gaudy butterflies. My MS. is sent to the printers, and, I suppose, will be published in about three months: of course I will send you a copy. By the way, I settled with Murray recently with respect to your book (456/1. The translation of "Fur Darwin," published in 1869.), and had to pay him only 21 pounds 2 shillings 3 pence, which I consider a very small price for the dissemination of your views; he has 547 copies as yet unsold. This most terrible war will stop all science in France and Germany for a long time. I have heard from nobody in Germany, and know not whether your brother, Hackel, Gegenbaur, Victor Carus, or my other friends are serving in the army. Dohrn has joined a cavalry regiment. I have not yet met a soul in England who does not rejoice in the splendid triumph of Germany over France (456/2. See Letter 239, Volume I.): it is a most just retribution against that vainglorious, war-liking 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 articles about my views; so I send you copies for the chance of your liking to see them.
LETTER 457. A.R. WALLACE TO CHARLES DARWIN. Holly House, Barking, E., January 27th, 1871.
Many thanks for your first volume (457/1. "The Descent of Man".), which I have just finished reading through with the greatest pleasure and interest; and I have also to thank you for the great tenderness with which you have treated me and my heresies.
On the subject of "sexual selection" and "protection," you do not yet convince me that I am wrong; but I expect your heaviest artillery will be brought up in your second volume, and I may have to capitulate. You seem, however, to have somewhat misunderstood my exact meaning, and I do not think the difference between us is quite so great as you seem to think it. There are a number of passages in which you argue against the view that the female has in any large number of cases been "specially modified" for protection, or that colour has generally been obtained by either sex for purposes of protection. But my view is, as I thought I had made it clear, that the female has (in most cases) been simply prevented from acquiring the gay tints of the male (even when there was a tendency for her to inherit it), because it was hurtful; and that, when protection is not needed, gay colours are so generally acquired by both sexes as to show that inheritance by both sexes of colour variations is the most usual, when not prevented from acting by Natural Selection. The colour itself may be acquired either by sexual selection or by other unknown causes.
There are, however, difficulties in the very wide application you give to sexual selection which at present stagger me, though no one was or is more ready than myself to admit the perfect truth of the principle or the immense importance and great variety of its applications.
Your chapters on "Man" are of intense interest — but as touching my special heresy, not as yet altogether convincing, though, of course, I fully agree with every word and every argument which goes to prove the "evolution" or "development" of man out of a lower form. My ONLY difficulties are, as to whether you have accounted for EVERY STEP of the development by ascertained laws.
I feel sure that the book will keep up and increase your high reputation, and be immensely successful, as it deserves to be...
LETTER 458. TO G.B. MURDOCH. Down, March 13th, 1871.
(458/1. We are indebted to Mr. Murdoch for a draft of his letter dated March 10th, 1871. It is too long to be quoted at length; the following citations give some idea of its contents: "In your 'Descent of Man,' in treating of the external differences between males and females of the same variety, have you attached sufficient importance to the different amount and kind of energy expended by them in reproduction?" Mr. Murdoch sums up: "Is it wrong, then, to suppose that extra growth, complicated structure, and activity in one sex exist as escape-valves for surplus vigour, rather than to please or fight with, though they may serve these purposes and be modified by them?")
I am much obliged for your valuable letter. I am strongly inclined to think that I have made a great and complete oversight with respect to the subject which you discuss. I am the more surprised at this, as I remember reflecting on some points which ought to have led me to your conclusion. By an odd chance I received the day before yesterday a letter from Mr. Lowne (author of an excellent book on the anatomy of the Blow-fly) (458/2. "The Anatomy and Physiology of the Blow-fly (Musca vomitaria L.)," by B.T. Lowne. London, 1870.) with a discussion very nearly to the same effect as yours. His conclusions were drawn from studying male insects with great horns, mandibles, etc. He informs me that his paper on this subject will soon be published in the "Transact. Entomolog. Society." (458/3. "Observations on Immature Sexuality and Alternate Generation in Insects." By B.T. Lowne. "Trans. Entomolog. Soc." 1871 {Read March 6th, 1871}. "I believe that certain cutaneous appendages, as the gigantic mandibles and thoracic horns of many males, are complemental to the sexual organs; that, in point of fact, they are produced by the excess of nutriment in the male, which in the female would go to form the generative organs and ova" (loc. cit., page 197).) I am inclined to look at your and Mr. Lowne's view as specially valuable from probably throwing light on the greater variability of male than female animals, which manifestly has much bearing on sexual selection. I will keep your remarks in mind whenever a new edition of my book is demanded.
