810 - DARESTE DE LA CHAVANNE, Camille, (1822–1899), zoologist in charge of courses in ichthyology and herpetology at the Natural History Museum, specialist in teratology. Signed autograph letter. Lille, May 15, 1864. 3 pp. in-8.

DARESTE DE LA CHAVANNE, Camille, (1822–1899), zoologist in charge of courses in ichthyology and herpetology at the Natural History Museum, specialist in teratology. Signed autograph letter. Lille, May 15, 1864. 3 pp. in-8. An interesting letter regarding the expansion of the Lille Museum’s collections with the assistance of Anatole de Norguet, a member of the administrative committee of the Lille Natural History Museum and president of the Society of Sciences in the same city. Donation of mammal skins to be mounted. Dareste then discusses his research on teratology, that is, the study of monstrosities: the incubated eggs at the Jardin des Plantes “do not reach the end of the incubation period.” I am all the more eager to obtain these kinds of eggs since I recently had the opportunity to observe the presence of deformities in unhatched chicks. But this research can only be of interest to the extent that it involves large numbers.” His experimental work has yielded “results far more remarkable even than those that are the subject of my previous memoirs. I am, in fact, beginning to discern cause-and-effect relationships between the anomalies I produce under certain circumstances and the conditions that determine these anomalies. But I need to repeat my new experiments still once more before I can publish them.” He has, moreover, finished “fully clarifying my ideas on a question concerning the origin of double monsters […] questions that, in an earlier paper, I had thought best to leave unresolved […].” He sent her a note on this subject to be presented to the Academy.