My dear Darwin

Thank you very much about the rabbits— I however sincerely trust you did not send your man all the way on purpose for them alone!¹ Any how I feel I have put you to much trouble and can only repeat how greatly I am obliged.

Your criticisms on my paper are very gratifying to me the more so that the question you put, is one to which I can at once reply.²

You ask, why hybrids of the first generation are nearly uniform in character while great diversity appears in the grand children & succeeding generations?

I answer, that the diagram shews (see next page) that only 4 stages separate the children from the parents but 20 from their grand-parents and therefore judging from these limited data alone, (ignoring for the moment, all considerations of unequal variability in the different stages & of pre-potence of particular qualities, &c—) the increase of the mean deviation of the several grandchildren (from the average hybrid) over that of the several children is as /20:/4 or more than twice as great. The omitted considerations would make the deviation (as I am prepared to argue) still greater.³

I will add the explanatory foot-note you most justly suggest,⁴ & should be very glad if you w^d. let me have your copy back (I will return it) with marks to the obscure passages that I may try to amend them.

I found the ⁠⟨⁠    ⁠⟩⁠ an uncommonly tough ⁠⟨⁠job⁠⟩⁠;—having to avoid hypothesis on the one hand & truism on the other and, again, the difficulty of being sufficiently general & yet not too vague.

It is very difficult to draw a correct verbal picture in mezzo tint, I mean by burnishing out the broad effects and not by drawing hard outlines.

Ever very sincerely | Francis Galton

I have knocked every symbol out of my paper & wholly rearranged the diagrams &c to make it less unintelligible.—⁵

FG

A pleasant journey & rest, to you all!⁶