Letter
to
Summary
European men choose partners for different reasons. Savages select more for bodily attraction than facial beauty.
Transcriptionf1
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– with regard to the beau ideal satisfactorily; for amongst us Europeans it is well known that one man selects his partner for a handsome face, whilst another make his choice of a good figure without much regard to beauty. All I can say is that savages generally select their partners more for any attraction the body may posses than for beauty of face.f2
By the by have you not described somewhere the flesh of the Puma as palatablef3 Did you ever taste the flesh of lions? I find opinions vary greatly with regard to the flavour of its flesh—
With kindest Regards | Yours very truly | Chs. J. Andersson
Chs. Darwin, Esqre.
Footnotes
- f1
- Dated by an endorsement in CD’s hand, presumably repeating the date given on the missing page of the letter (see CD’s annotations). This fragment was preserved in a portfolio of notes on sexual selection used in preparing Descent.
- f2
- Andersson was a Swedish-born explorer of Africa. CD also asked Walter Baldock Durrant Mantell the same question about sexual selection among indigenous populations (see letter to W. B. D. Mantell, 10 April [1856]). Neither Mantell nor Andersson was cited in Descent.
- f3
- In Journal of researches, p. 135, CD reported having eaten puma meat on a journey from Patagones to Buenos Aires and pronounced it ‘remarkably like veal in taste’.