CHARLES DARWIN TO J.H. FABRE. Down, January 31, 1880.
My dear Sir,
I hope that you will permit me to have the satisfaction of thanking you cordially for the lively pleasure which I have derived from reading your book. Never have the wonderful habits of insects been more vividly described, and it is almost as good to read about them as to see them. I feel sure that you would not be unjust to even an insect, much less to a man. Now, you have been misled by some translator, for my grandfather, Erasmus Darwin, states ('Zoonomia,' volume i. page 183, 1794) that it was a wasp (guepe) which he saw cutting off the wings of a large fly. I have no doubt that you are right in saying that the wings are generally cut off instinctively; but in the case described by my grandfather, the wasp, after cutting off the two ends of the body, rose in the air, and was turned round by the wind; he then alighted and cut off the wings. I must believe, with Pierre Huber, that insects have "une petite dose de raison." In the next edition of your book, I hope that you will alter PART of what you say about my grandfather.
I am sorry that you are so strongly opposed to the Descent theory; I have found the searching for the history of each structure or instinct an excellent aid to observation; and wonderful observer as you are, it would suggest new points to you. If I were to write on the evolution of instincts, I could make good use of some of the facts which you give. Permit me to add, that when I read the last sentence in your book, I sympathised deeply with you. (The book is intended as a memorial of the early death of M. Fabre's son, who had been his father's assistant in his observations on insect life.)
With the most sincere respect, I remain, dear Sir, yours faithfully, CHARLES DARWIN.
P.S.—Allow me to make a suggestion in relation to your wonderful account of insects finding their way home. I formerly wished to try it with pigeons: namely, to carry the insects in their paper "cornets," about a hundred paces in the opposite direction to that which you ultimately intended to carry them; but before turning round to return, to put the insect in a circular box, with an axle which could be made to revolve very rapidly, first in one direction, and then in another, so as to destroy for a time all sense of direction in the insects. I have sometimes IMAGINED that animals may feel in which direction they were at the first start carried. (This idea was a favourite one with him, and he has described in 'Nature' (volume vii. 1873, page 360) the behaviour of his cob Tommy, in whom he fancied he detected a sense of direction. The horse had been taken by rail from Kent to the Isle of Wight; when there he exhibited a marked desire to go eastward, even when his stable lay in the opposite direction. In the same volume of 'Nature,' page 417, is a letter on the 'Origin of Certain Instincts,' which contains a short discussion on the sense of direction.) If this plan failed, I had intended placing the pigeons within an induction coil, so as to disturb any magnetic or dia-magnetic sensibility, which it seems just possible that they may possess.
C.D.
[During the latter years of my father's life there was a growing tendency in the public to do him honour. In 1877 he received the honorary degree of LL.D. from the University of Cambridge. The degree was conferred on November 17, and with the customary Latin speech from the Public Orator, concluding with the words: "Tu vero, qui leges naturae tam docte illustraveris, legum doctor nobis esto."
The honorary degree led to a movement being set on foot in the University to obtain some permanent memorial of my father. A sum of about 400 pounds was subscribed, and after the rejection of the idea that a bust would be the best memorial, a picture was determined on. In June 1879 he sat to Mr. W. Richmond for the portrait in the possession of the University, now placed in the Library of the philosophical Society at Cambridge. He is represented seated in his Doctor's gown, the head turned towards the spectator: the picture has many admirers, but, according to my own view, neither the attitude nor the expression are characteristic of my father.
A similar wish on the part of the Linnean Society— with which my father was so closely associated—led to his sitting in August, 1881, to Mr. John Collier, for the portrait now in the possession of the Society. Of the artist, he wrote, "Collier was the most considerate, kind and pleasant painter a sitter could desire." The portrait represents him standing facing the observer in the loose cloak so familiar to those who knew him, and with his slouch hat in his hand. Many of those who knew his face most intimately, think that Mr. Collier's picture is the best of the portraits, and in this judgment the sitter himself was inclined to agree. According to my feeling it is not so simple or strong a representation of him as that given by Mr. Ouless. There is a certain expression in Mr. Collier's portrait which I am inclined to consider an exaggeration of the almost painful expression which Professor Cohn has described in my father's face, and which he had previously noticed in Humboldt. Professor Cohn's remarks occur in a pleasantly written account of a visit to Down in 1876, published in the "Breslauer Zeitung", April 23, 1882. (In this connection may be mentioned a visit (1881) from another distinguished German, Hans Richter. The occurrence is otherwise worthy of mention, inasmuch as it led to the publication, after my father's death, of Herr Richter's recollections of the visit. The sketch is simply and sympathetically written, and the author has succeeded in giving a true picture of my father as he lived at Down. It appeared in the "Neue Tagblatt" of Vienna, and was republished by Dr. O. Zacharias in his 'Charles R. Darwin,' Berlin, 1882.)