My dear Darwin

On Tuesday or Wed^y. I will write about the rabbits.² I am not quite sure, where they can best be bestowed until returning to town & seeing my stock.—wh: have not even yet been operated on (owing to trouble about instruments, due from Germany)   How curious those changes are, in the colour of the silver greys. The fact of their turning out of different shades of grey is nothing unusual; at all events, in the particular breed to wh: these belong, for M^r. Royds³ (the rabbit fancier from whom I first got them, always insisted upon the fact of the shades being very variable and said that the fanciers had recently changed their taste from dark silver grey to light.

You asked me about Himalayas,⁴ the assertion I have more than once heard, is that any breed of silver grey is liable (without crossing) to throw Himalayas   whether these revert, I don’t know, for when I asked, I was told that they were not kept & studied. One breed, I had from M^r. Rayson,⁵ a rabbit fancier in Yorkshire, was very apt, as he told me, to throw Himalayas. Some times they were yellow with black tips & sometimes white with black tips. One of my own breeding, from his stock was a yellow Himalaya, & at first I hoped it might be successful mongrelisation.

About D^r. Butler and the curious inherited trick— I shall be glad to amend & fortify the statement I sent you, for I have cross questioned the whole family & the grand child is now regularly under observation. I will send you the results when I have them— the trick is still more curious than I thought, for it occurs in D^r. Montague⁶