Will try to procure specimens of native rat and frog for CD. Will be glad to make observations for him.
Cites case of a species of duck that normally nests on ground but builds in trees if disturbed.
Lake Ohau. N.Z.
Our common friend D
I am very sorry that I have no specimen of the native rat, it being almost extinct, but
I shall do my best to procure one for you; The frog exists only in one or two small
creeks at Coromandel in the northern island, and I shall write instantly to one of my
Auckland friends, M
You will see in my address as Presi
Believe me my dear Sir | very sincerely yours | Julius Haast
- f1 3851.f1Haast initially wrote this letter on 9 December 1862, enclosing or intending to enclose it with a letter to Joseph Dalton Hooker of 10 December 1862. Hooker received Haast's letter in mid-April 1863, but either he lost Haast's letter to CD, or Haast failed to enclose it as promised (see Correspondence vol. 11, letters from J. D. Hooker, 20 April 1863 and [30 April 1863], and letter to J. D. Hooker, 23 April ). Fearing, however, that the entire body of his correspondence sent from Lake Ohau at this time had gone astray, Haast sent Hooker copies of his letters to CD and Hooker, together with two covering letters, in March 1863 (see ibid., letter from Julius Haast, 5 March 1863). These arrived in mid-June 1863, and Hooker transmitted to CD the letter from Julius Haast, 5 March 1863 (ibid.), together with this copy of the letter from Julius Haast, 9 December 1862 (see ibid., letter from J. D. Hooker, 19 June 1863). For reasons of clarity, the copy of Haast's letter has been reproduced here, in addition to being reproduced as an enclosure to the letter from Julius Haast, 5 March 1863 (ibid.).
- f2 3851.f2See the enclosure to the letter from J. D. Hooker, 20 September 1862. See also letter to J. D. Hooker, 21 [September 1862] and nn. 6 and 7.
- f3 3851.f3J. F. J. von Haast 1862a and 1862b (see Correspondence vol. 11, letter to Julius von Haast, 22 January 1863). There are annotated copies of these publications in the Darwin Pamphlet Collection--CUL.
- f4 3851.f4J. F. J. von Haast 1862a, p. 127. Mount Darwin is at the northern end of the Malte Brun Range, in the Southern Alps of New Zealand. Haast explained his practice of naming mountains in a letter to William Jackson Hooker of 9 June 1862: `When beginning with the survey of the Southern Alps of New Zealand, hitherto entirely unknown, I proposed myself to create a kind of Pantheon or Walhalla for my illustrious contemporaries amongst those never-trodden peaks and glaciers' (H. F. von Haast 1948, p. 213).
- f5 3851.f5See letter to J. D. Hooker, 21 [September 1862] and nn. 6 and 7. Charles Petschler has not been identified.
- f6 3851.f6In J. F. J. von Haast 1861, p. 135, Haast had stated: `The native rat (Mus rattus) is the only known indigenous land quadruped'. However, in J. F. J. von Haast 1862b, p. 6, Haast had discussed the possible existence of two further indigenous quadrupeds. One was a badger- or otter-like quadruped, `called by the natives Kaureke', which he believed probably still existed in the lakes and rivers of the Southern Alps. The second was a smaller, nocturnal quadruped, traces of which Haast had found `in the river bed of the Hopkins, the stream which forms Lake Ohou [Ohau]'.
- f7 3851.f7Haast refers to the Philosophical Institute of Canterbury, which he founded in the summer of 1862 (H. F. von Haast 1948, pp. 220--30).
- f8 3851.f8In J. F. J. von Haast 1862b, p. 7, Haast presented his discussion of Origin as `a tribute to its illustrious author', stating that this was `the great work of the age' in natural history. While asserting that CD's theories were not altogether new, Haast claimed that CD's `great merit' was that he had not only dealt with the subject in a `true philosophical spirit' but had also collected `a great mass of facts, which throw new light upon this inexhaustible source of inquiry'.
- f9 3851.f9As geologist for the province of Canterbury, Haast had spent the period from January to May 1862 in the Southern Alps of New Zealand, carrying out the regular work of the geological survey of the province, together with a search for gold-bearing deposits (H. F. von Haast 1948, pp. 199--219).
- f10 3851.f10John Marshman was agent to the Canterbury Emigration Office, 16 Charing Cross, London (Post Office London directory 1863).