skip to content

Darwin Correspondence Project

From F. B. Goodacre   11 August 1879

Wilby Rectory | Attlebro’ | Norfolk

Aug 11/79

Dear Sir,

I trouble you with this thinking you may like to know the results of my experiments for this year in cross breeding between the two forms of domestic geese; I enclose an account of the goslings that have been reared by myself & several friends:—1

Dr. Meadows was prevented doing anything owing to the two birds I sent him (children of your pair) being both of one sex;2 should it so happen that you could give him a female gosling I should be much obliged as then he would try to breed for another generation in & in, I enclose his country address in case you can supply him with one.

I will gladly send you one of my goslings (rather more than 12 Chinese) if for any reason you would care to have one   Perhaps you might like to watch the change of colour of the bill from black to orange: I am making a collection of skulls & windpipes thinking they may be interesting for reference, I wish I knew of pictures of the windpipes of Grey lag Bean White fronted & Pink footed Geese3 that I could take tracings of them for comparison:

Hoping you are better than when I last heard with kind regards | Believe me | yrs truly | F B Goodacre

[Enclosure]

Ganders Goslings reared in /79

13 Chinese & Pure Chinese

13 Chinese & Pure Common

(brother to above)

12 Chinese & Common or 34 Chinese   some doubt as to which

goose laid the eggs they were hatched from

(brother to yours)

12 Chinese & Pure Chinese

brother to above

Dr. Meadows country address

To the care of | Mr. Masson | Poyle Park | Colnbrook | Bucks4

CD annotations

Top of letter: ‘(Keep)’, square brackets in ms ink; ‘Attleborough’ ink

Footnotes

Goodacre offered CD crosses between Chinese geese, a domestic variety of the wild swan goose (Anser cygnoides), and common geese, a variety of the wild greylag goose (A. anser), in 1878; CD had agreed to do further crossing experiments with them at Down (see Correspondence vol. 26, letter to F. B. Goodacre, 3 September [1878]). CD had discussed such crosses as examples of hybrid fertility in Origin, p. 253, and Descent 2: 114. Goodacre thought that the Chinese and common geese were ‘mongrels’ of the same species and that this explained why they could interbreed; he thought ‘hybrids’ could not interbreed (see Correspondence vol. 26, letter from F. B. Goodacre, 2 September 1878 and n. 2).
Goodacre had proposed sending Alfred Meadows these geese to cross in 1878; see Correspondence vol. 26, letter from F. B. Goodacre, 2 September 1878 and n. 3.
The bean goose is Anser fabalis; the white-fronted or greater white-fronted goose, A. albifrons; and the pink-footed goose, A. brachyrhynchus.
William Masson worked as Meadows’s gardener at Poyle Manor, Colnbrook, Buckinghamshire (Gardener: a Magazine of Horticulture and Floriculture (1881): 188).

Bibliography

Descent: The descent of man, and selection in relation to sex. By Charles Darwin. 2 vols. London: John Murray. 1871.

Origin: On the origin of species by means of natural selection, or the preservation of favoured races in the struggle for life. By Charles Darwin. London: John Murray. 1859.

Summary

Crossbreeding experiments with geese.

Letter details

Letter no.
DCP-LETT-12189
From
Francis Burges Goodacre
To
Charles Robert Darwin
Sent from
Attleborough, Norfolk
Source of text
DAR 165: 66
Physical description
ALS 4pp †

Please cite as

Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 12189,” accessed on 28 March 2024, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-12189.xml

letter