P.S.--Tell Lady Lyell that I was unable to digest the funereal ceremonies of the ants, notwithstanding that Erasmus has often told me that I should find some day that they have their bishops. After a battle I have always seen the ants carry away the dead for food. Ants display the utmost economy, and always carry away a dead fellow-creature as food. But I have just forwarded two most extraordinary letters to Busk, from a backwoodsman in Texas, who has evidently watched ants carefully, and declares most positively that they plant and cultivate a kind of grass for store food, and plant other bushes for shelter! I do not know what to think, except that the old gentleman is not fibbing intentionally. I have left the responsibility with Busk whether or no to read the letters. (I.e. to read them before the Linnean Society.)CHARLES DARWIN TO THOMAS DAVIDSON. (Thomas Davidson, F.R.S., born in Edinburgh, May 17, 1817; died 1885. His researches were chiefly connected with the sciences of geology and palaeontology, and were directed especially to the elucidation of the characters, classification, history, geological and geographical distribution of recent and fossil Brachiopoda.
On this subject he brought out an important work, 'British Fossil Brachiopoda,' 5 vols. 4to. (Cooper, 'Men of the Time,' 1884.))Down, April 26, 1861.
My dear Sir, I hope that you will excuse me for venturing to make a suggestion to you which I am perfectly well aware it is a very remote chance that you would adopt. I do not know whether you have read my 'Origin of Species'; in that book I have made the remark, which I apprehend will be universally admitted, that AS A WHOLE, the fauna of any formation is intermediate in character between that of the formations above and below. But several really good judges have remarked to me how desirable it would be that this should be exemplified and worked out in some detail and with some single group of beings. Now every one will admit that no one in the world could do this better than you with Brachiopods. The result might turn out very unfavourable to the views which I hold; if so, so much the better for those who are opposed to me. ("Mr. Davidson is not at all a full believer in great changes of species, which will make his work all the more valuable.--C. Darwin to R. Chambers (April 30, 1861).) But I am inclined to suspect that on the whole it would be favourable to the notion of descent with modification; for about a year ago, Mr. Salter (John William Salter; 1820-1869. He entered the service of the Geological Survey in 1846, and ultimately became its Palaeontologist, on the retirement of Edward Forbes, and gave up the office in 1863. He was associated with several well-known naturalists in their work--with Sedgwick, Murchison, Lyell, Ramsay, and Huxley. There are sixty entries under his name in the Royal Society Catalogue. The above facts are taken from an obituary notice of Mr. Salter in the 'Geological Magazine,' 1869.) in the Museum in Jermyn Street, glued on a board some Spirifers, etc., from three palaeozoic stages, and arranged them in single and branching lines, with horizontal lines marking the formations (like the diagram in my book, if you know it), and the result seemed to me very striking, though I was too ignorant fully to appreciate the lines of affinities. I longed to have had these shells engraved, as arranged by Mr. Salter, and connected by dotted lines, and would have gladly paid the expense: but I could not persuade Mr. Salter to publish a little paper on the subject. I can hardly doubt that many curious points would occur to any one thoroughly instructed in the subject, who would consider a group of beings under this point of view of descent with modification. All those forms which have come down from an ancient period very slightly modified ought, I think, to be omitted, and those forms alone considered which have undergone considerable change at each successive epoch. My fear is whether brachiopods have changed enough. The absolute amount of difference of the forms in such groups at the opposite extremes of time ought to be considered, and how far the early forms are intermediate in character between those which appeared much later in time.
The antiquity of a group is not really diminished, as some seem vaguely to think, because it has transmitted to the present day closely allied forms.
Another point is how far the succession of each genus is unbroken, from the first time it appeared to its extinction, with due allowance made for formations poor in fossils. I cannot but think that an important essay (far more important than a hundred literary reviews) might be written by one like yourself, and without very great labour. I know it is highly probable that you may not have leisure, or not care for, or dislike the subject, but I trust to your kindness to forgive me for making this suggestion. If by any extraordinary good fortune you were inclined to take up this notion, I would ask you to read my Chapter X. on Geological Succession. And I should like in this case to be permitted to send you a copy of the new edition, just published, in which I have added and corrected somewhat in Chapters IX. and X.
Pray excuse this long letter, and believe me, My dear Sir, yours very faithfully, C. DARWIN.
P.S.--I write so bad a hand that I have had this note copied.
CHARLES DARWIN TO THOMAS DAVIDSON.
Down, April 30, 1861.
