To Francis Trevelyan Buckland 26 January [1863]1
[letter … to Francis Buckland, Down, 26 January n.y., recalling that they were introduced ‘by your late honoured Father’ many years ago,2 writing as a fellow-naturalist to ask Buckland’s help in identifying an article in The Field about the fins of fishes growing again after being cut off,3 and enquiring whether he has heard of the re-growth of organs ‘such as tail or finger or toe’ in the mammalia or birds, ‘I am privately informed that regrowth occurs with monstrous additional fingers with men’4]
I hope that you will excuse my venturing thus to trouble you, & I beg leave to remain, Dear Sir | Yours faithfully, | Charles Darwin
A friend sent me a few days ago the Field with your5
[Darwin in a postscript refers also to Buckland’s letter in The Field about a ‘Dog-Lion’ and a reported sighting in Russia.]6
Footnotes
Bibliography
DNB: Dictionary of national biography. Edited by Leslie Stephen and Sidney Lee. 63 vols. and 2 supplements (6 vols.). London: Smith, Elder & Co. 1885–1912. Dictionary of national biography 1912–90. Edited by H. W. C. Davis et al. 9 vols. London: Oxford University Press. 1927–96.
Variation: The variation of animals and plants under domestication. By Charles Darwin. 2 vols. London: John Murray. 1868.
Summary
Asks FB’s help in identifying an article in The Field about the fins of fishes growing again after being cut off, and inquiring whether he has heard of the re-growth of organs in the mammalia or birds.
Letter details
- Letter no.
- DCP-LETT-3948F
- From
- Charles Robert Darwin
- To
- Francis Trevelyan (Frank) Buckland
- Sent from
- Down
- Source of text
- Christie’s, London (dealers) (23 June 1993, lot 146)
- Physical description
- ALS ** 4pp
Please cite as
Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 3948F,” accessed on 26 September 2022, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-3948F.xml
Also published in The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, vol. 11
