Ɛpsilon

To G. J. Romanes   [4 November 1875]1

6. Q. Anne St.

Thursday 8th

My dear Romanes

I came up here yesterday to be examined by vivisection Commissioners, but return home today & hope soon to receive the carrots.2 I do not think there will be a chance to get the plant to seed during the winter. I will enquire & read up; I shd think the roots ought to be kept as dormant as possible all winter & then start them in spring out of doors. The mere diffusion of colour from side to side though curious does not seem to me very important. If the seed wd yield white & red or mottled carrots it wd be grand— I hope you have got pure seeds of the 2 grafted kind to sow at the same time.3

I saw for 12 hour B. Sanderson4 & he is the first man who seemed to me to appreciate physiological importance of [fixing] graft-Hybrids. He told me a little about the medusæ— I do not yet fully understand the case, but enough to see that you have done splendid work & I most heartily congratulate you.—5

Your papers in Nature, especially the last is most curious & amused & interested us all greatly, I never read anything funnier than about the ferrets.—6 It is also very important. It is too late about the sternums, but I did add a note giving your belief.—7 You shall hear when I have seen carrots

Yours very sincerely | Ch. Darwin

1
The date is established by the reference to CD’s visit to London to testify before the Royal Commission on vivisection (see n. 2, below). CD evidently wrote ‘Thursday 8th’ in error.
2
CD went to London on Wednesday 3 November 1875, staying with his brother Erasmus Alvey Darwin at 6 Queen Anne Street; he gave testimony before the Royal Commission on vivisection and returned to Down the following day (Report of the Royal Commission on vivisection, pp. 233–4).
5
On Romanes’s work on the nervous system of medusae, see the letter to G. J. Romanes, 24 September [1875] and n. 8.
6
In Nature, 28 October 1875, pp. 553–4, Romanes described the maternal instincts of a hen that kept three young ferrets in her nest, returning each time they cried in distress. Romanes had also published letters in Nature on the pugnacity of rabbits and hares (30 September 1875, p. 476), and on the tails of rats and mice (14 October 1875, p. 515).
7
See letter from G. J. Romanes, [before 4 November 1875] and n. 5. In Variation 2d ed. 1: 288, CD added, ‘Mr. Romanes, however, believes that the malformation is due to fowls whilst young resting their sternums on the sticks on which they roost.’

Manuscript Alterations and Comments

1.7 pure] interl
3.3 did add] above del ‘di have added’
3.4 hear] above del ‘hea’

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-10239,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-10239