My dear M^r Darwin,

Many thanks for your kind note just received, and which I hasten to answer—¹ You may, perhaps, have seen in my “Notes” on the fauna of Newfoundland that I met with a very severe accident from frost, by which I lost nearly half of my right foot, and being 500 miles from a medical man, I had to let Nature take its course, with the exception of the charming operation of having my toes struck off with a mallet and chisel—a performance which, of course, I had to superintend.² This kept me a prisoner to the house throughout the summer of 1867; but, as I was walking from a settlement called Daniel’s Harbour, to another called Parson’s Pond—a distance of 16 miles—a day or two before Midsummer day 1868 I saw a female cariboo with a good-sized fawn beside her, and she certainly had not shed her horns.³ You will say that this is only a solitary instance, which I candidly admit, but, I think, it goes far to prove that the Indians must have observed many similar cases whereon to found their theory.

With regard to this fact I have had no experience on the Mainland of America, but should not the fact have been proved to hold good then I see no difficulty (unless I carry your theory too far) in accounting for it on the theory of sexual selection. The island of N.F.D.⁴ has evidently been seperated from the mainland for an immense number of years (as, I think, is partly proved by my finding an Iris sp. n.,⁵ Rubus arcticus—not yet found on the mainland I believe—,⁶ Cornas suecica— ditto—,⁷ and a little Euphrasia which I named E. purpurea but which M^r Baker (from a dried specimen) thinks is a European form called E. gracilis⁸   I also found Gentiana Amarella⁹ abundant at Cow Head—and until very recently wolves abounded to such an extent that they were a perfect nuisance; in fact £5 per head has been paid for them by the Government for very many years: I therefore take it that a female Cariboo which retained her horns, if only for a short period after the birth of the fawn, would