Down, | Beckenham, Kent. | Railway Station | Orpington. S.E.R.
June 5th 1878
Dear Sir
Your view of the origin of tumbling seems to me very probable.1 Some years ago I received a letter & I believe a paper published in some Indian Journal, describing some experiments made by the author, who had punctured the skull of a pigeon which was not a tumbler, & it survived for a long time & flew in a manner closely resembling that of a tumbler.2 I cannot remember whether any fluid was injected into the skull.— I thought that I had quoted these experiments in the second edition of my Variation of Animals & Plants under Domestication, but I cannot find the passage & therefore cannot give the reference
Dear Sir | Yours faithfully | Ch. Darwin
P.S | I have just succeeded, & you will find reference in foot-note to Vol. I. p. 228 of my Var. under Dom.— Observe 2d. Edit 1875.—3
We do not in the least know the origin of the common Tumbler, but we may suppose that a bird was born with some affection of the brain, leading it to make somersaults in the air.
He added a note to the second edition referring to Moore’s experiments:pricking the base of the brain, and giving hydrocyanic acid, together with strychnine, to an ordinary pigeon, brings on convulsive movements exactly like those of a Tumbler. One pigeon, the brain of which had been pricked, completely recovered, and ever afterwards occasionally made somersaults.
(Variation 2d ed. 1: 228, n. 46.)Please cite as “DCP-LETT-11543,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on