To St G. J. Mivart 28 January [1871]

Down. | Beckenham | Kent. S.E.

Jan 28^th

My dear Sir

Though I may appear bothersome I must thank you cordially for your letter: it has given me in [every] way sincere pleasure.—¹ I have told Murray to send you a copy of Dom. Animals, as I thought you w^d not object to keep a copy for my sake.—² I have found passage ‘false-belief’— The whole with context does not sound to me dogmatic.— One of my Boys has copied passage.—³

[Enclosure]

Animal and Plants Voll 2. page 414

On the other hand it is certain that the ancon and mauchamp breeds of sheep,⁴ and almost certain that the niata cattle,⁵ turnspit⁶ and pug-dogs, jumper and frizzled fowls,⁷ short faced tumbler pigeons,⁸ hook-billed ducks &c, and with plants a multitude of varieties, suddenly appeared in nearly the same state as we now see them. The frequency of these cases is likely to lead to the false belief that natural species have often originated in the same abrupt manner. But we have no evidence of the appearance or at least of the continued procreation under nature of abrupt modifications of structure and various general reasons could be assigned against such a b[el]ief: for instance, without separation a single monstrous variation would almost certainly be soon obliterated by crossing.