Sir

I am reading with much interest your instances of inherited peculiarities of the eye and in return I offer what I think is perhaps worth notice—¹

My father (M^r Browne² Coroner Nottingham) had till upwards of 50 the best sight I ever knew. He has seven children all of whom have remarkably good sight. The oddity is that he & his four sons including myself are color blind to the extent of inability to distinguish some shades of red from some shades of green.— We sons I think are worse than our father.— For instance my brother Walter (dentist) had a patient in his room who was struck with some red patches on a wall 50 yards or so off and among the green leaves of a wall tree.— They were clusters of red berries of a japonica but to Walter the whole appearance of the tree was green.

I try to distinguish by reasoning & it was this plan whose failure pointed out my defect very conspicuously for the first time.— At school was a dutch clock with a field painted on it.— I had some reason to mention its color & thinking that no one would be fool enough to paint it anything but green I called it green to the amusement of my companions to whom it was clearly a bright red.—

Walter, Michael & I are all good rifle shots & we all four quite excel in everything requiring correctness of sight not depending on color—

Strangely enough our sisters (three) have equally good sight as to form without the defect as to color.—

My youngest brother Arthur is not a good rifle shot only because he has never fired a rifle I believe, but if he join the Robin Hoods I have no doubt of his success.³

Yours obly | Hugh Browne | Solicitor

Charles Darwin Esq FRS | care of John Murray Esq | Albemarle Street