Asks WDF to observe at what age pigeons have tail-feathers sufficiently developed to be counted.
CD is hard at work on his notes for a book with all the facts "for & versus" the immutability of species.
Asks for a young chicken and a nestling common pigeon.
Thanks WDF for his offer of assistance in collecting varieties of poultry. Describes his needs. He will raise his own pigeons.
Often doubts whether, despite all help, the problem of species will not overpower him.
Explains more clearly what he is looking for in his work on poultry: relative variation at different ages, the effect of disuse on different parts, breeding between wild and domestic, and degree of fertility of "mongrels of very diverse races".
William Yarrell has assured him that call ducks cross freely with common varieties. CD would like a seven-day duckling and an old one that dies a natural death.
CD is depressed – all his experiments are going wrong, "all nature is perverse and will not do as I wish it". Feels he is getting out of his depth.
Asks WDF to induce schoolboys to collect eggs of lizards and snakes for him. He will see whether they float and stay alive on sea-water.
He may insert his request for lizards’ eggs in Gardeners’ Chronicle.
His study of mongrel chicks is to ascertain whether the young of domestic breeds differ as much as their parents.
Has already sent a communication on means of distribution of plants by sea to Gardeners’ Chronicle [Collected papers 1: 255–8].
Thanks WDF for specimens and his great help to CD in his work on variations in young and adult ducks and poultry. Has found feet of tame adult ducks weigh twice as much as those of wild ones.
Several seeds have come up after 65–70 days’ immersion in salt water.
Has now a fine collection of pigeons and intends to cross them systematically.
Needs information on mongrel crosses of animals of all kinds.
Describes his method of putting young poultry to death.
Asks questions arising from WDF’s reply about crossed mongrels.
Has received the duck and bantam.
Anxious to get as many facts as possible on crossbreeding of dogs.
Reports on seeds that have germinated after 100 days immersion [in salt water].
Reports on his collection of skeletons of young and adults of various breeds of fowls and specimens still needed.
CD now has a sufficiently large collection of [skeletons of] chickens to be able to tell how far the young differ proportionally from the old.
He goes on accumulating facts; what he will do with them "remains to be seen".
Attended Glasgow BAAS meeting. "Duke of Argyll spoke excellently" [Rep. BAAS (1855): lxiii–lxxxvi].
Lists his pigeon collection.