Ɛpsilon

To William Ogle   22 September 1875

Down, | Beckenham, Kent.

Sep 22. 75

My dear Dr Ogle

You will remember giving me a curious case about the fingers & teeth of twins, which I have quoted at Vol II p 253 of my Variation under Domn. Now will you kindly tell me whether the twins were named Macrae? I ask because F. Galton tells me of a similar case with twin Miss Macrae’s, & in this instance the crooked little fingers were inherited from their maternal grand mother.1 You will thus see why I wish to know whether the cases are distinct.

Pray believe me | Yours very sincerely

L

1
See letter from Francis Galton, 22 September 1875. In Variation 2: 253, CD had written that no member of the twins’ family shared their peculiarity. The McRae twins were Alexandrina Cornfute McRae and Elizabeth Anne McRae; their maternal grandmother was Annabella Miller.

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-10165,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-10165