Dear Sir

While lately looking over your “descent of Man”, to refresh my memory, the thought of mentioning 3 facts within my own observation, again, as on first reading the work, occurred to me.

1. Death from perforation of the vermiform appendage of the Cæcum. p. 27.¹ My Father² died in 1839 after an illness which utterly confounded 3 medical men one of whom was the late Sir Henry, then D^r., Holland. On a post-mortem examination,—which, in the interests of medical science I was strongly urged to permit—it was found that the appendix Cæci had been perforated by a grape seed. The fatal termination of an illness previously appearing wholly anomalous was thus held to have been fully accounted for.

2^d.Snipes,— not breeding in England. p. 260.³ These birds breed here every year, not in great numbers, but still sufficiently to make it worth while to go out with the gun in July, before the young broods are dispersed.

3^d.Horns in Sheep. pp. 289–90.⁴ In the “Lonk” breed of Sheep the presence of horns is a “firmly fixed character”. But in my attempts to improve the breed by crossing with the hornless Leicesters, & Shropshire Downs,—an account of which I sent you some 5 years ago—the horn, as the late M^r. Dixon put it in his paper on my flock & herd, (Farmers Magazine March 1861.) was “knocked completely out” of the female lambs, while in the males it still remained, though considerably reduced in size.⁵ In Provence, I remember to have seen occasionally Rams with a 3^d. Horn, projecting straight out from the centre of the forehead, greatly resembling the horn of the conventional Unicorn of the Supporters of the Royal Arms.⁶ Owing to my imperfect French & the Provencal patois of the Shepherds we were never able to understand each other, & thus I failed to obtain any information respecting these, to me, strange animals.

I know not whether these few facts will have any interest for you, if not I would pray you to accept my apologies for thus intruding upon your time & attention.

very truly yours | Jonⁿ Peel

Charles Darwin Esq^re.