The Complete Work of Charles Darwin Online

RECORD: Darwin, C. R. n.d. Waterhouse urged that if all fossils were collected & mingled with recent. CUL-DAR205.5.159. Edited by John van Wyhe (Darwin Online, http://darwin-online.org.uk/)

REVISION HISTORY: Transcribed by Christine Chua and edited by John van Wyhe 1.2023. RN1

NOTE: See record in the Darwin Online manuscript catalogue, enter its Identifier here. Reproduced with permission of the Syndics of Cambridge University Library and William Huxley Darwin. The volume CUL-DAR205.5 contains notes on the principle of divergence, transitional organs and instincts.

The brown crayon number '11' indicates that this document was filed by Darwin in his portfolio for the subject of Divergence.

[159]

Waterhouse urged that if all fossils were collected & mingled with recent there wd yet be divisions & groups. 11

W. went quite as far as Bentham about genera turning into Families, instanced Nyctale— Heteromera from S. America —says Forbes wd only consider genus as group. — It is clear cannot weigh the value of groups.

Says plenty of cases of 2 species in a genus, & as soon as several species found allied to one of the 2, then raised into 2 genera. Hence probably those genera having on average only 2 or 3 species, according to structure alone, shd form ever more genera & so on average have even fewer species.—

Citation: John van Wyhe, ed. 2002-. The Complete Work of Charles Darwin Online. (http://darwin-online.org.uk/)