Ɛpsilon

To G. J. Romanes   15 November 1880

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

Nov. 15th 80

My dear Romanes

I have just read your article.1 As far as my judgment goes it is excellent & could not be improved.— You have skimmed the cream off the whole subject. It is also very clear.— One or two sentences near the beginning seem rather too strong; as I have marked with pencil, without attending to style.—2 I have made one or two small suggestions.— If you can find my account in Nature,* (last summer I think) about the hybrid Chinese-gees inter se, it wd be worth adding & wd. require only 2 or 3 lines.3 I do not suppose you wish to add but in my paper on Lythrum & I think requoted in Var. under Dom. Vol 2. 2d. Edit, bottom of page 167 I have a good sentence about a man finding 2 vars of Lythrum & testing them by fertility & coming to egregiously wrong conclusion.—4

I think your idea of reference to best books & short history of subject good.—5

By the way you have made me quite proud of my chapter on Hybridism; I had utterly forgotten how good it appears when dressed up in your article!!6

Yours very sincerly | Ch. Darwin

I have had a hunt & found my little article on Geese, which please hereafter return.—

1
Romanes had sent proof-sheets of his article on hybridism for the Encyclopaedia Britannica (G. J. Romanes 1881; see letter from G. J. Romanes, 13 November 1880).
2
Romanes’s article began with the etymology of ‘hybrid’ and its supposed Greek source, ‘hubris’, as ‘an insult or outrage, with special reference to lust; hence an outrage on nature, a mongrel’ (G. J. Romanes 1881, p. 422).
3
The article quoted CD’s discussion in Origin, p. 253, of fertile hybrids produced from crosses between the common and the Chinese goose; Romanes added a note referring to CD’s letter to Nature, 15 December [1879] (Correspondence vol. 27), which contained further details of the case, including experiments by CD himself (see G. J. Romanes 1881, p. 425 and n.). The Chinese goose is a domestic variety of the wild swan goose (Anser cygnoides). The common European domestic goose is a variety of the wild greylag goose (Anser anser).
4
For the description of possible mistaken conclusions about Lythrum salicaria (purple loosestrife) from a hypothetical botanist, see Variation 2d ed. 2: 167–8; CD’s earlier paper on the subject was ‘Three forms of Lythrum salicaria’.
5
Romanes’s article included a long list of botanical works and authorities on hybridism, some of which were suggested by CD (see letter to G. J. Romanes, 14 November [1880], and G. J. Romanes 1881, p. 426).
6
Romanes quoted at length from CD’s chapter on hybridism in Origin, pp. 245–78; and from the extended discussion of the subject in Variation 2: 178–91.

Manuscript Alterations and Comments

1.5 *] referring to added del note ‘*I stupidly have not kept the volume of Nature, but believe I kept my own article & could perhaps find it, if you wanted it.’
1.5 (last] after del ‘ei’
1.6 hybrid] interl
1.6 adding] above del ‘adding’
1.8 Vol … 167] interl
1.9 a man] ‘a’ interl
1.10 wrong] after del ‘long’
5.1 little] interl

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-12820,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-12820