From Francis Galton to Francis Darwin 7 April 1871
5 Bertie Terrace | Leamington
April 7/71
My dear Darwin
Your letter saying that your father will kindly take care of the 8 little rabbits, was most grateful. If you will fill up the enclosed note addressed to him & fix a day not earlier than Tuesday, not later than Thursday next week, I am sure that Fraser will pack them off safely.1
There is one thing, note, to attend to, that is exceptional with this breed of rabbits; namely, a strong tendency to scurf (eczema) on the nose, muzzle, eye-lids, and legs. This is apt to become a most serious evil but is infallibly checked by tobacco-water (an infusion of strong pig-tail tobacco) rubbed well in. I use a soft tooth brush. They squeal very much, sometimes, and they are usually narcotised afterwards, but it all goes off;—pain, narcotism & scurf.
These 8 rabbits are, 6 of them by one doe, & 2 by another—both thoroughly x circulated. Their father was the same &, in addition he is the son of a pair who had both been injected with defibrinized blood.2 My paper will come out in the next no. of the R Soc: Proceedings & I will send your father a copy, with their pedigree, marked.3
I shd. propose that these rabbits be kept to grow & strengthen till the end of July (when they will all be more than 6 months old) Then I wd. put all the does to the bucks, and get perhaps 20 young from them, and I would not put the does again to the bucks but let them thoroughly recover & let them & the bucks be operated on early in Septr; thus—
July 30 (say) | does put to bucks |
Aug 30 | litters born |
Sept 30 | litters weaned |
Oct 7–11 | does & bucks operated on. |
As regards the 20(?) young which are to be expected, I should be inclined to operate on 10(?) of them in a new way, (into jugular vein from a supplying carotid artery) while they are quite young, say,
Oct 14–21 | operate on 10(?) of the young |
and the remaining 10 to be kept for further proceedings,—breeding or operations, as may be then thought advisable.
Though I shall not have my old excellent assistant Fraser, who sails this day week for Calcutta, I shall have the run of the University Coll: Physiolog: Laboratory & shall be able, I believe, to conduct all the operations there with convenience, greater than hitherto.4
With kindest remembrance, | Ever your sincerely yours | Francis Galton
CD annotations
Footnotes
Bibliography
Galton, Francis. 1871. Experiments in pangenesis, by breeding from rabbits of a pure variety, into whose circulation blood taken from other varieties had previously been largely transfused. [Read 30 March 1871.] Proceedings of the Royal Society of London 19 (1870–1): 393–410.
Summary
CD will take care of the eight little rabbits. FG outlines their future.
Letter details
- Letter no.
- DCP-LETT-7662
- From
- Francis Galton
- To
- Francis Darwin
- Sent from
- Leamington
- Source of text
- DAR 105: A25–7
- Physical description
- ALS 5pp † (by CD)
Please cite as
Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 7662,” accessed on 20 March 2023, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-7662.xml
Also published in The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, vol. 19