From Francis Galton 9 December 1859
42. Rutland Gate | London S.W.
Dec 9. 1859.
My dear Darwin
Pray let me add a word of congratulation on the completion of your wonderful volume,—to those which I am sure you will have received from every side. I have laid it down in the full enjoyment of a feeling that one rarely experiences after boyish days, of having been initiated into an entirely new province of knowledge which, nevertheless, connects itself with other things in a thousand ways.
I hear you are engaged in a second Edition. There is a trivial error in p. 68. about Rhinoceroses, which I thought I might as well point out. & have taken advantage of the same opportunity to scrawl down a dozen other notes, which may, or may not, be worthless to you1
With our united kind regards to yourself & Mrs. Darwin | Believe me very sincerely yours | Francis Galton
[Enclosure]
68. (Rhinoceros.— “none are destroyed by beasts of prey”)
The wild dogs hunt the young ones very much & exhaust them to death— They pursue them all day long tearing at their ears which is the only part their teeth can fasten on. It is rare to find a Rhinoceros whose ears are not more or less mutilated,—& bear witness to the perils of their youth.
I never saw the young ones actually hunted but it was a common subject of assertion, that it was so, & I fully believe it. When one of these tough skinned beasts is dead, the jackals &c &c wait patiently till he corrupts enough for them to bite into him.2
74. (Indirect effects—) Mr. Young of Invershin3 told me years ago that he did not approve wholly of killing otters in order to preserve salmon. Otters killed a few salmon but they killed many trout & the Salmon fry had no greater enemy than trout. Therefore he actually preserved the otters in more than one instance with a view to the advantage of the Salmon.4
CD annotations
Footnotes
Bibliography
Galton, Francis. 1853. The narrative of an explorer in tropical South Africa. London: John Murray.
Natural selection: Charles Darwin’s Natural selection: being the second part of his big species book written from 1856 to 1858. Edited by R. C. Stauffer. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1975.
Origin: On the origin of species by means of natural selection, or the preservation of favoured races in the struggle for life. By Charles Darwin. London: John Murray. 1859.
Summary
Congratulates CD on Origin; has been "initiated into an entirely new province of knowledge".
Notes error involving rhinoceros.
Encloses other notes.
Letter details
- Letter no.
- DCP-LETT-2573
- From
- Francis Galton
- To
- Charles Robert Darwin
- Sent from
- London, Rutland Gate, 42
- Source of text
- DAR 98: B16 and DAR 106: D22
- Physical description
- ALS 3pp †
Please cite as
Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 2573,” accessed on 19 April 2024, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-2573.xml
Also published in The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, vol. 7
