From William Ogle [before 9 November 1870]1
34 Clarges St. | Piccadilly.
Dear Sir,
I have taken the liberty of sending you a copy of a paper which I read at the beginning of the year before the Royal Med. Chir. Society, of which you are an honorary Fellow.2
I thought that you might perhaps find some interest in the speculation as to the use of pigment in animals, and its distribution, in which I have indulged in the latter half of the article. (p. 14–28)3
I have ventured in one place (p. 19–20) to suggest hypothetically a different account of the relation between the white colour of animals and their liability to be poisoned by noxious plants, than that advanced by yourself, in your work on Domesticated animals and plants.4
If it be not asking too great a favour of you, I should much like to hear, whether any facts personally observed by yourself are inconsistent with the hypothesis I have suggested. Whether, that is, you are yourself assured from personal knowledge that coloured animals do eat actually the poisonous plants, without suffering from them, or without suffering so much as do the white.
Again apologising for thus troubling you | Believe me | Yours sincerely | William Ogle.
Footnotes
Bibliography
Correspondence: The correspondence of Charles Darwin. Edited by Frederick Burkhardt et al. 29 vols to date. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1985–.
Variation: The variation of animals and plants under domestication. By Charles Darwin. 2 vols. London: John Murray. 1868.
Summary
Sends CD a paper dealing in part with animal pigmentation [Med.-Chir. Trans. 2d ser. 411 [check vol no!?] (1870): 263–90]. Discusses relationship between white colouring and susceptibility to poisonous plants.
Letter details
- Letter no.
- DCP-LETT-7361
- From
- William Ogle
- To
- Charles Robert Darwin
- Sent from
- London, Clarges St, 34
- Source of text
- DAR 173: 3
- Physical description
- ALS 3pp
Please cite as
Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 7361,” accessed on 23 April 2024, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-7361.xml
Also published in The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, vol. 18