Volume I Part 36 (1/2)

I forget whether I ever told you what the object of my present work is,--it is to view all facts that I can norant I find I araphical distribution, palaeontology, classification, hybridism, domestic animals and plants, etc, etc, etc) to see how far they favour or are opposed to the notion that wild species are ive all arguments and facts on both sides I have a NUMBER of people helpingme most valuable assistance; but I often doubt whether the subject will not quite overpower me

So much for the quasi-business part of my letter I am very very sorry to hear so indifferent account of your health: with your large family your life is very precious, and I aht to be a happy one, or as happy as can reasonably be expected with all the cares of futurity on one

One cannot expect the present to be like the old Crux-major days at the foot of those noblestumps, the y which I wholly owe to you, coiven yourself a rest from Sunday duties How much illness you have had in your life! Farewell my dear Fox I assure you I thank you heartily for your proffered assistance]

CHARLES DARWIN TO WD FOX Down, May 7th [1855]

My dear Fox,

My correspondence has cost you a deal of trouble, though this note will not I found yours on my return home on Saturday after a week's work in London Whilst there I saw Yarrell, who told me he had carefully examined all points in the Call Duck, and did not feel any doubt about it being specifically identical, and that it had crossed freely with common varieties in St Jalad for a seven-days' duckling and for one of the old birds, should one ever die a natural death Yarrell told me that Sabine had collected forty varieties of the common duck!Well, to return to business; nobody, I ae of little chickens; with respect to skeletons, I have feared it would be impossible to make them, but I suppose I shall be able tothe joints What you say about old cocks just confirht, and I will make my skeletons of old cocks Should an old wild turkey ever die, please remember me; I do not care for a baby turkey, nor for a mastiff Very reyhound in salt, and I have had cart-horse and race-horse young colts carefullyout of my depth

Most truly yours, C DARWIN

[An extract froh of a later date, viz July, 1855]:

”Many thanks for the seven days' old white Dorking, and for the other pro quite a 'chamber of horrors,' I appreciate your kindness even more than before; for I have done the black deed and elic little fantail and pouter at ten days old I tried chloroforh evidently a perfectly easy death, it was prolonged; and for the second I tried putting lue daeon, and the prussic acid gas thus generated was very quickly fatal”

A letter to Mr Fox (May 23rd, 1855) gives the firstof pigeons:

”I write now to say that I have been looking at sorel chickens, and I should say ONE WEEK OLD would do very well The chief points which I am, and have been for years, very curious about, is to ascertain whether the YOUNG of our domestic breeds differ as much from each other as do their parents, and I have no faith in anything short of actual measure so ot my fantails and pouters (choice birds, I hope, as I paid 20 shi+llings for each pair froeon-house, and they are a decided aht to H”

In the course ofenterprise he necessarily beca his experiences as a member of the Columbarian and Philoperistera Clubs, where he met the purest enthusiasts of the ”fancy,” and learntto Mr Huxley soeons' by Mr J Eaton, in illustration of the ”extreood fancier

”In his [Mr Eaton's] treatise, devoted to the Almond Tumbler ALONE, which is a sub-variety of the short-faced variety, which is a variety of the Tueon, Mr Eaton says: 'There are soo for all the five properties at once [ie, the five characteristic points which arenothing'

In short, it is almost beyond the human intellect to attend to ALL the excellencies of the Alood breeder, and to succeed in i enthusiasained lots of prizes, listen to hientle amount of solace and pleasure derived froin to understand their (ie, the tumbler's) properties, I should think that scarce any nobleentleman would be without their aviaries of Al this passage, and alith a tone of fellow-feeling for the author, though, no doubt, he had forgotten his oonderings as a child that ”every gentlee 32)

To Mr WB Tegetmeier, the well-knoriter on poultry, etc, he was indebted for constant advice and co-operation Their correspondence began in 1855, and lasted to 1881, when my father wrote: ”I can assure you that I often look back with pleasure to the old days when I attended to pigeons, fowls, etc, and when you gave ret that I have had so little strength that I have not been able to keep up old acquaintances and friendshi+ps” My father's letters to Mr Teget to the different breeds of fowls, pigeons, etc, and are not, therefore interesting In reading through the pile of letters, one is ence of the writer's search for facts, and it is hly valued by him Numerous phrases, such as ”your note is ahis sense of the value of Mr Teget his war zeal and kindness, or his ”pure and disinterested love of science” On the subject of hive-bees and their coetmeier's help was also valued by my father, rote, ”your paper on 'Bees-cells,' read before the British association, was highly useful and suggestive to raphical Distributions of animals and plants on evolutionary principles, he had to study the s, etc, can be transported across wide spaces of ocean

It was this need which gave an interest to the class of experi letters allude]

CHARLES DARWIN TO WD FOX Down, May 17th [1855]

My dear Fox,

You will hate the very sight of ; but after this ti time As you live on sandy soil, have you lizards at all common? If you have, should you think it too ridiculous to offer a reward for s to the boys in your school; a shi+lling for every half-dozen, or ot two or three dozen and send theht in mistake it would be very well, for I want such also; and we have neither lizards nor snakes about here My object is to see whether such eggs will float on sea water, and whether they will keep alive thus floating for aexperis that I can; and lizards are found on every island, and therefore I as stand sea water Of course this note need not be answered, without, by a strange and favourable chance, you can sos

Your most troublesome friend, C DARWIN

CHARLES DARWIN TO JD HOOKER April 13th [1855]