From E. B. Tylor 21 June 1880
Linden | Wellington Som.
June 21 | 80
My dear Sir
It fits with your remarks about birds and telegraph wires, that a New Zealand colonist whom I asked about sheep and poison-plants offered me as more satisfactory for my purpose his experience of the first setting up of a telegraph, when at first numbers of birds were killed against the wires, but from the second year none.1 This will answer my purpose as an illustration, and I will not trouble you further about sheep & poisonous plants. But so far as I learn from my friend Mr W. A. Sanford the geologist, who was in Australia, the sheep there (in the West) rush on the bright green poison-pea, and in a few minutes the whole flock begin to whirl round & then fall dead, so that there are really no survivors to benefit by the experience.2
With many thanks for your kindly looking into your evidence for me
I am | Yours very sincerely | Edward B. Tylor
Charles Darwin Esq
Footnotes
Bibliography
Dictionary of Australian artists: The dictionary of Australian artists. Painters, sketchers, photographers and engravers to 1870. Edited by Joan Kerr. Melbourne: Oxford University Press. 1992.
Summary
Learning by experience of others: birds being killed by telegraph wires when first set up; sheep in Australia eating poisonous plants.
Letter details
- Letter no.
- DCP-LETT-12642
- From
- Edward Burnett Tylor
- To
- Charles Robert Darwin
- Sent from
- Wellington, Somerset
- Source of text
- DAR 178: 206
- Physical description
- ALS 4pp
Please cite as
Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 12642,” accessed on 24 April 2024, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-12642.xml