Ɛpsilon

To G. H. Darwin   [19 August 1875]

If your Review is published & you have alluded to the Rabbit case, I think that you ought to send a supplement. Indeed in any case this seems worth doing. I will try & get the book where Mr Legrain is exposed, & you can see it when here. I shd. like the letter returned, but it had better perhaps be first sent to Mr Huth, for whom I am sorry1

C. D

What an extraordinary piece of good luck it was that I wrote to Van Beneden.2

ApcS

Postmark: AU 19 75

1
In his book on consanguineous marriage, Alfred Henry Huth gave a detailed account of experiments by Jean Baptiste Legrain that purported to show that interbreeding rabbits for several generations produced no ill effects (Huth 1875, pp. 297–302). Following an enquiry from CD, Edouard van Beneden confirmed that Legrain’s claims had been discredited (see letter from Edouard van Beneden, 18 August 1875 and n. 2). George’s review of Huth 1875 appeared in the Academy, 28 August 1875, pp. 226–7.
2
See letter from Edouard van Beneden, 18 August 1875. CD’s letter to Beneden has not been found.

Manuscript Alterations and Comments

1.1 have] interl
1.3 where … here.] interl

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-10128,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-10128