My Dear Sir

I have been very carefully reading your first volume & feel quite in despair as to being able to give you any information, your collection of facts is overwhelming.—¹

If all your readers were as fond of the subject as I am they would never weary of the details, I could gladly have read far more with intense pleasure.—

I must confess myself amazed to find that many of the hybrids between the Canary & other finches are fertile, this is quite new to me.—²

I have a curious wild canary brought to me from Lisbon & believe it was imported there from some of the Atlantic Islands, it may be the bird from which the domestic race originated but its call note is quite different, & its song as might have been expected differs considerably, it agrees exactly with one in the bird room at the Zoological Gardens, incorrectly called the Serin & said to have been taken in England, & with a bird exhibited at the Crystal Palace last show & described as a Siskin Mule.—³

My species has however bred freely with a Canary and one of the young ♂ is now coming into song.—

I usually keep a few Bullfinches at Blackheath but am not aware that any are wild in the neighbourhood, at least I never see or hear one, but if unfortunately I lose a male by death in a few days a wild bird will come & sit on the Aviary, this appears to me to be very remarkable because the call note of the species is by no means loud & can I should think be heard but a very short distance.—

it is further to be noted that the odd bird in this case is certainly not the seeker but the sought.—

The Peregrines at Beachy Head are a good illustration of a pair being always forthcoming, a friend of mine shot one of them & has it stuffed so there can be no mistake about it, in a few days the remaining bird found a mate.—⁴

Often one of the birds is killed but soon after there as usual are two birds—

I knew one curious change of color in a dark brown hen which belonged to M^rs. Weir⁵ before our marriage.— This fowl in one molt changed to pure white & in the next molt regained its original color.—

A friend of mine here at Blackheath has a peacock which when young was white, but as it became older it assumed the plumage of Nigripennis, its parents where however both of the ordinary Cristatus variety.—⁶

It would seem probable that the original species of Pavo was more like Javanicus than Cristatus⁷

I had intended to have written on the subject of caterpillars & birds but must reserve it till the next letter.—

Believe me | Yours very truly | J Jenner Weir

C Darwin Esq^r.