My Dear Sir,

Although my botanical knowledge is of a very slender description I have no doubt I shall be able to get specimens for you of the Listera cordata & Habenaria viridis, both of which are to be found in this district or at least at no great distance.¹ I have gathered specimens of them myself but several years ago, & not just in this locality. The Corallorhiza has not hitherto been found, I believe, in this part of Scotland.

As you are interested in the change of habits of animals perhaps the following may be worth sending.

In 1845 when attending college in Aberdeen I was more addicted to the pursuit of birds than to classical learning & was always rambling about with a gun, & on one occasion shot a Kestrel (Falco tinnunculus) which had been previously wounded & had got one of its legs broken, and in skinning it I found the stomach unusually distended & on opening it found the contents to be remains of worms & also what appeared to be snails or slugs— It had apparently been obliged to betake itself to this unnatural cuisine from inability to catch its wonted prey. It had been observed haunting the outskirts of the town for some days previous by a fellow student who told me he had fired five shots at it. The following jotting from an old sort of ornithological journal which I used to keep, authenticates the fact. “1845, November 26^th. Stuffed the Kestrel. Its stomach was much distended & filled with remains of worms, & as I supposed, snails &c. it having been compelled to feed upon these, one of its legs being broken.”

A Gamekeeper here, (on whose veracity I can depend) told me what I thought a very curious physiological fact, viz that he has shot hares containing two broods of young of very different ages viz. one set nearly being littered & the others quite small.²

In the French scientific periodical the ‘Cosmos’ vol 14. p. 531 (being for 1859) there is a notice from an article in the Patrie by H. Berthoud for 10 May, regarding some curious modifications in the appetites of animals in a state of confinement or domestication.³

My Dear Sir | Yours very truly | Tho^s. F. Jamieson

Cha^s. Darwin Esq.