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Darwin Correspondence Project

To W. B. Tegetmeier   [13 September 1855]1

British Association | Glasgow

Thursday

My dear Sir

Your most kind note has been forwarded to me here, but not your pamphlet.2 which no doubt is at my house.— I made my list as short as possible not to be too unreasonable. But assuredly I shd. be very glad indeed to have any & all breeds, which you in your experience think distinct. It is a large coloured Dorking which has been promised me, & which I think from the quarter whence it comes may be trusted to be true of its kind; the gentleman (Rev W. Darwin Fox) who has promised it me, told me at the time that the White Dorking was very distinct, but I fancied, no doubt erroneously, that he referred only to colour.—3 With respect to the Polands & Hamburghs & indeed in the whole subject, I shd. be most grateful to trust to your selection.

I did not put down Rouen Ducks, from thinking that they differed only in plumage & from seeing some remark to that effect in Mr E. S. Dixon’s Book on Poultry.4 But if in figure or proportions different, I shd. be most glad to have it. So indeed with the other varieties you mention; which I omitted, as I before said, because I thought it would seem so ludicrously presumptuous to ask you or anyone to take so much trouble. I shd. be extremely glad to have everything, which seems to you tolerably distinct. Especially glad shd. I be for all good Pigeons; I feel the greatest interest about pigeons, since I have kept a few & watched their habits & ways.—5

On my return home I shall be very glad to send you my Journal.6

Really & truly your kindness, is so much more than I could have expected, that I cannot attempt to thank you, but you will, I hope, believe, that I feel very | sincerely obliged | Charles Darwin

Footnotes

CD attended the British Association for the Advancement of Science meeting in Glasgow from 12 to 19 September 1855. He was a vice-president of section C (geology). He and Emma left Down on 10 September, and CD returned on 22 September, going via Shrewsbury to visit his sisters (‘Journal’; Correspondence vol. 5, Appendix I).
Tegetmeier 1854. CD’s copy in the Darwin Library–CUL is inscribed by the author.
See letter to W. D. Fox, 22 August [1855]. In his pamphlet on the care and breeding of poultry, Tegetmeier stated that the white Dorking was ‘obviously a distinct variety from the coloured Dorking, the latter having evidently derived its size, aptitude to fatten, and other profitable characteristics from the large Surrey fowl’ (Tegetmeier 1854, p. 33).
Edmund Saul Dixon, in E. S. Dixon 1848, p. 126, had stated: ‘They appear to be identical with the commonest Ducks which we have everywhere.’
CD’s pigeon house had been completed by the end of April (letter to W. E. Darwin, [25 April 1855]) and by September he had acquired at least eight different breeds: pouters, carriers (dragons), runts, barbs, fantails, tumblers, Jacobins, and swallows (see letters to W. D. Fox, 23 May [1855] and 27 [June 1855], and CD’s Account book (Down House MS), entry of 30 August 1855).

Bibliography

Correspondence: The correspondence of Charles Darwin. Edited by Frederick Burkhardt et al. 29 vols to date. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1985–.

Dixon, Edmund Saul. 1848. Ornamental and domestic poultry: their history and management. London: Office of the “Gardeners’ Chronicle”.

Tegetmeier, William Bernhard. 1854. Profitable poultry; their management in health and disease. 2d ed. London: Darton and Co.

Summary

Would welcome any distinct breed of poultry and would be glad to have any good pigeons.

Letter details

Letter no.
DCP-LETT-1754
From
Charles Robert Darwin
To
William Bernhard Tegetmeier
Sent from
BAAS, Glasgow
Source of text
Archives of the New York Botanical Garden (Charles Finney Cox Collection)
Physical description
ALS 4pp

Please cite as

Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 1754,” accessed on 19 March 2024, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-1754.xml

Also published in The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, vol. 5

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