Asks about the differences in colour of plumage of adult male, female, and young birds. Suggests pile game as subject.
Asks about relative proportion of sexes in ducks and fowls.
Showing 61–80 of 102 items
The Charles Darwin Collection
The Darwin Correspondence Project is publishing letters written by and to the naturalist Charles Darwin (1809–1882). Complete transcripts of letters are being made available through the Project’s website (www.darwinproject.ac.uk) after publication in the ongoing print edition of The Correspondence of Charles Darwin (Cambridge University Press 1985–). Metadata and summaries of all known letters (c. 15,000) appear in Ɛpsilon, and the full texts of available letters can also be searched, with links to the full texts.
Asks about the differences in colour of plumage of adult male, female, and young birds. Suggests pile game as subject.
Asks about relative proportion of sexes in ducks and fowls.
Repeats request for information on colours of plumage of poultry breeds and asks for WBT’s facts on proportions of sexes.
Inquires about colour and development of plumage of poultry breeds. Is endeavouring to trace sexual differences throughout the animal kingdom.
Wants information on plumage of chickens
and table of sex ratios in greyhounds.
Thanks for greyhound table; interested in transmission of colour in greyhounds and relationship to sex.
Thanks for procuring eggs.
CD’s health has necessitated his leaving home.
Further queries on poultry plumage.
WBT’s visit to America.
Inquires about the differences in plumage between chicks and adults of certain poultry breeds. Is anxious to know whether the chick’s plumage closely approaches the adult’s in those breeds in which the sexes resemble each other in plumage.
He will send carrier to the Field office to collect pigeons.
Chickens have arrived safely.
Sends some replies to CD’s queries and data on pigeon flights between Bordeaux and Verviers.
[Queries in CD’s hand answered on same pages by WBT.] Sexual selection of fowls; role of beauty in cocks.
Does not believe in regeneration of monstrous toe.
Pigeon and poultry experiments.
Peculiar pigeon at Philoperisteron [pigeon fanciers’ club].
Hoped to meet CD at the Linnean Society to discuss pigeon and poultry breeding experiments.
Progress of pigeon and poultry breeding experiments. No loss of fertility observed yet.
Blue-eyed cats and deafness.
Encloses a cutting from the Field: C. R. Bree on zebra-striped asses.
Sends paper on mimetic analogy [Intellect. Obs. 6 (1864): 307–13].
Mongrel experiments are progressing, but he has observed no signs of sterility.
Would like his fowl skulls back.
Breeding experiments seem to show mongrels are just as fertile as pure breeds.
Will return page on pigeons.
Has concluded his crossing experiments and found no trace of hybrid sterility or loss of fertility.
The Field is publishing a series of papers on different pigeon varieties [24 (1864): 366, 395, 459; 25 (1865): 115, 139, 155, 228, 258].
Encloses some poultry feathers.
Will read over and return CD’s MS on fowls. Has been delayed by an eye injury.