From George Maw 1 June 1865
Benthall Hall. | nr. Broseley.
June 1st. 1865
Dear Sir
I have to day come across a very remarkable case of animal monstrosity with the particulars of which you will I think be interested
On the 3rd. or 4th. of May 1863 a sow belonging to Mr. Wood of the Star Hotel Shiffnal1 brought forth a litter of eleven pigs all of which were well formed excepting the 2nd. born which is formed in several points like an Elephant. It has a distinct proboscis depending from the nose. Ears & mouth shaped exactly like an elephants & in one or two other respects deviating from the usual formation of a young pig. it is supposed to have been brought forth alive tho’ never seen alive as the mother overlaid it— There was an interval of two or three hours between its birth & the birth of the succeeding nine healthy pigs all of which were delivered in the usual rapid succession.
The Mother has had previous & subsequent litters all of which have been healthy & well formed.
The history of the gestation of the litter to which this pig belonged is very remarkable & I have been very careful in sifting & ascertaining the probable correctness of the following facts.
In July 1863, the Sow was put to the Boar & one or two days afterwards (I cannot clearly ascertain the exact interval) Some Elephants belonging to Edmund’s menagerie2 were quartered at the Star Hotel one of these had a peculiar antipathy to pigs & on going up the hotel yard endeavoured to reach the sow with its trunk. The ostler tells me the pig appeared quite terror striken & to this is attributed the singular malformations in its young—3 The young pig has been preserved in spirits & is now in possession of a chemist in the town— I believe it has not yet been seen by any one who would be likely to appreciate its scientific importance. The present owner wants £2 for it & if you think it is of sufficient importance to place in one of the London museums I shall be very happy to purchase it for this purpose & present it to the museum of the R C of Surgeons4 or wherever you think it will be better located. It seems a pity it should be left in the obscurity of a small country town. I am not acquainted with Professor Owen5 or would have written to him on the subject of placing the pig in the museum of the College of Surgeons
One point I am quite certain of; that it is not a made up specimen nor do I see any reason to doubt the fact of the Elephants visit soon after the sow received the boar, however we may view its possible connection with the monstrosity—
I have recently been investigating some deposits in N Wales which underlie the Boulder clay drift that I fully expect will prove to be of Tertiary age.—6 They consist of white black or variegated sands alternating with Curious white clay & various colored Pipe clays & Earthy lignite— The general series is very much like many of the tertiary beds of Dorsetshire
The little remnants are preserved in pockets in the mountain limestone of Flintshire & Carnarvonshire & belong to a formation that must once have had a wide distribution in N Wales. I have observed it over a distance of 30 miles from East to West— I hope next week to make a careful examination of the district & shall try & find some organic remains.7
If you think the monstrous pig will be acceptable at one of the London museums will you kindly favor me with a line by an early post that I may secure it.
I am Dr Sir | very truly your’s | Geo Maw
C Darwin Esq.
Footnotes
Bibliography
Correspondence: The correspondence of Charles Darwin. Edited by Frederick Burkhardt et al. 29 vols to date. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1985–.
Huet, Marie-Hélène. 1993. Monstrous imagination. Cambridge, Mass., and London: Harvard University Press.
Post Office directory of Gloucestershire, with Bath, Bristol, Herefordshire, and Shropshire: Post Office directory of Gloucestershire, with Bath, Bristol, Herefordshire, and Shropshire. Post Office directory of Gloucestershire, Herefordshire, Shropshire, and the City of Bristol. Post Office directory of Shropshire, Herefordshire, and Gloucestershire, with the City of Bristol. London: Kelly & Co. 1856–79.
Richards, Evelleen. 1994. A political anatomy of monsters, hopeful and otherwise. Teratogeny, transcendentalism, and evolutionary theorizing. Isis 85: 377–411.
Rupke, Nicolaas A. 1994. Richard Owen, Victorian naturalist. New Haven, Conn., and London: Yale University Press.
Todd, Dennis. 1995. Imagining monsters. Miscreations of the self in eighteenth-century England. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press.
Turner, John M. 1995. Victorian arena. The performers. A dictionary of British circus biography. Volume one. Formby, England: Lingdales Press.
Wilson, Dudley. 1993. Signs and portents. Monstrous births from the Middle Ages to the Enlightenment. London and New York: Routledge.
Summary
Reports a monstrous pig that looks like an elephant. It was born of a pregnant sow which had been frightened by a circus elephant. He offers the monster, which died at birth, to any London museum.
Letter details
- Letter no.
- DCP-LETT-4847
- From
- George Maw
- To
- Charles Robert Darwin
- Sent from
- Benthall Hall
- Source of text
- DAR 171: 100
- Physical description
- ALS 7pp
Please cite as
Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 4847,” accessed on 28 March 2024, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-4847.xml
Also published in The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, vol. 13