Ɛpsilon

To F. B. Goodacre   29 August 1879

Down, | Beckenham, Kent. (Railway Station | Orpington. S.E.R.)

Aug. 29th 79

Dear Sir

I have now returned home.1 The single gosling, which survived from the first set of eggs, is a very fine bird & is pronounced by a man who attends geese, certainly to be a gander.— The sexes of the 3 goslings of the 2d hatch, also very fine birds, cannot be distinguished as yet.— Now will you be so good as to inform me what I had better do with the whole lot, for I am not willing to keep them any longer from the reasons formerly assigned, & in addition because the gander pursues and frightens a little grandchild who lives with us.—2

Shall the birds be all returned to you, or shall I send some or all to Dr.  Meadows? In the latter case would they reach Dr. Meadows’ house quickly by rail so as not to suffer for want of food & water?3

Further will you permit me to ask whether you intend to publish the result of your trials in any scientific Journal; for if you do not intend to do so, I shd. much wish to publish a mere note in the Proc. of the Zoolog. Soc.—4

Again thanking you very sincerely for all your kind assistance, I remain | Dear Sir | Yours faithfully | Ch. Darwin

Any of the birds not returned to you or Dr Medows will be cooked & eaten by us, as soon as old enough, which I believe will be next month.— I mention this solely to show that you may freely dispose of the whole lot.

1
CD had been on holiday at Coniston in the Lake District from 2 to 27 August 1879 (Emma Darwin’s diary (DAR 242)).
2
CD had taken part in Goodacre’s programme of crossing experiments with Chinese and common geese. He had written about the trouble he had breeding them in his letter to Goodacre of 13 August [1879]. Both breeds, like their wild progenitors, are monomorphic, but some behavioural differences, such as neck carriage, can be indicative of sex. The only accurate method for sexing goslings, vent sexing, was not developed until the early twentieth century. The grandchild was Bernard Darwin.
3
In his letter of 11 August 1879, Goodacre had asked CD to send Alfred Meadows a female gosling to breed with one of his geese to produce another generation of crosses.
4
CD had asked whether he could use the results of Goodacre’s crossing experiments for a publication in his letter of 13 August [1879]. In the event, Goodacre published a short note in the Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London (Goodacre 1879) and CD published a letter in Nature, 1 January 1880, p. 207 (see letter to Nature, 15 December [1879]).

Manuscript Alterations and Comments

0.1 (Railway … S.E.R.)] parentheses added
1.3 sexes of the] interl
1.6 formerly] interl
2.1 all] interl

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-12204,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-12204