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.
Would like his fowl skulls back.
Breeding experiments seem to show mongrels are just as fertile as pure breeds.
Sends paper on mimetic analogy [Intellect. Obs. 6 (1864): 307–13].
Mongrel experiments are progressing, but he has observed no signs of sterility.
Encloses some poultry feathers.
Will read over and return CD’s MS on fowls. Has been delayed by an eye injury.
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].
Sends copies of the Field containing all the pigeon articles [see 4785].
Luke Wells will undertake engravings for Variation.
WBT’s eye is getting on very well.
Enclosure comments on a note to folio 1 [of CD’s MS on variation], WBT thinks his works not worth citing: his edition of the Poultry book was never completed and Profitable poultry is out of print.
MS [of CD’s pigeon chapter] arrived safely.
Pigeon and poultry engravings [for Variation].
CD has asked him to supervise drawings of pigeons and fowls [for Variation]. Sends estimates for drawings and engravings by artists who do such work for the Field.
WBT will try experiment for CD if Mr Zurhorst cannot do it.
Discusses pigeon and poultry woodcuts [for Variation].
WBT’s poultry book is at last in the hands of a solvent publisher [The poultry book (1867)].
Thanks for the remittance.
Both WBT and Mr Zurhorst will repeat Zurhorst’s experiment to eliminate any chance of error.
Edward Blyth is writing on Indian cattle for the Field [27 (1866): 55–6, 77].
All the blocks [for Variation] are now engraved except the rock-dove.
Encloses feathers from a diseased hen which has assumed cock plumage.
Forwards proofs of the engravings for Variation.
Alterations to the woodcuts of poultry for Variation.