Darwin praises the work of Mary Treat, an entomologist from New Jersey. Her article on Drosera was referenced by Darwin in his 1875 publication Insectivorous Plants. As a published naturalist, Treat had already constructed a public profile for…
Mary Treat’s 1873 article Controlling Sex in Butterflies. In January 1872, having been asked for his opinion on her research, Darwin praised Treat’s research into butterfly diet and sex and encouraged her to publish her findings.
The official organ of the Philosophical Radicals, the Westminster Review, also praised Darwin for handling sensitive subject matter in a temperate, cautious and modest way.
The delicate and difficult nature of its content made it tricky for a reviewer from the literary journal Athenaeum to discuss certain sections of Descent at any considerable length.
A review of Descent published in the Bradford Observer which adopted the common strategy of substituting the word ‘sex’ for the more palatable ‘sexes’ in the title of Descent.
A review of Descent in the popular American journal Harper’s New Monthly, which misquoted the title of the book in the same way as the Bradford Observer.