From John Walton [after 4 April 1866]1
I remember hearing the late professor Dicks of Edinburgh2 say in a lecture at the Veternary college there that he once knew an instance of a fully developed tooth being found in the testicul of a horse that I thought a very singular place for a tooth to grow in perhaps the very last member of the body where one would have expected it.3
I have often remarked the great fleetness of hares in countries where greyhound coursing is much followed. I have lived in places where few or no greyhounds were kept and the hares though not more numerous were so slow that they were not unfrequently caught by the sheep dogs in a [fore] course while when tried with greyhounds they made no sport but in countries where many greyhounds are kept where the landlord of each village public house has his coursing dog & where dogs are constantly being excercised and tried they do not catch one hare out of three they are sliped at so fleet do they get by being bred by natural selection from the strongest & fleetest sires & dams.4
I have now Sir jotted down the few things that come into my mind while I read your book if they are of the least use to you as confirmatory evidence I shall be glad to think it a little return for the pleasure received by me from your writings
I am Sir | Your Obedient Servant | John Walton [jr]
CD annotations
Footnotes
Bibliography
Modern English biography: Modern English biography, containing many thousand concise memoirs of persons who have died since the year 1850. By Frederick Boase. 3 vols. and supplement (3 vols.). Truro, Cornwall: the author. 1892–1921.
Origin: On the origin of species by means of natural selection, or the preservation of favoured races in the struggle for life. By Charles Darwin. London: John Murray. 1859.
Variation: The variation of animals and plants under domestication. By Charles Darwin. 2 vols. London: John Murray. 1868.
Summary
Reports of a tooth found in the testicle of a horse.
Hares are very fleet in countries in which greyhound coursing is developed, slow in those in which no greyhounds are kept.
Letter details
- Letter no.
- DCP-LETT-13851
- From
- John Walton, Jr
- To
- Charles Robert Darwin
- Sent from
- unstated
- Source of text
- DAR 47: 210
- Physical description
- ALS 2pp inc †
Please cite as
Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 13851,” accessed on 19 March 2024, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-13851.xml
Also published in The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, vol. 14