To G. J. Romanes   13 December 1880

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

Dec. 13th 80

(return home tomorrow)

My dear Romanes

Your suggestion seems to me an excellent one, but we have no apparatus.1 I will, however, show your note to Frank.2 Certainly alternations of light & darkness at long intervals stimulates plants. Wd. it not be worth your while to try seedlings of Canary grass or cabbage?—3 The former wd be best.— A whole pot of seedlings cd be tried together. They are exqui⁠⟨⁠sitely⁠⟩⁠ sensitive to light. They migh⁠⟨⁠t⁠⟩⁠ be tried now, but possibly it might be a little better in early spring.—

We staid in London on ou⁠⟨⁠r⁠⟩⁠ road here for 3 days & I had hoped to see you, but I had to see other people, & by the afternoon was dead beaten each day.—4

I am delighted that my book has interested you.—5

I suppose that you have cases of dogs calling on each other & tempting one another to go out hunting by themselves.— There is a case here of pet dogs in 2 houseses about 12 mile apart, & their owners have agreed to shut up their dogs on alternate weeks, so that the 2 are never free at the same time for if they are, they will ⁠⟨⁠go⁠⟩⁠ hunting.—

My dear Romanes | Yours sincerely | Ch. Darwin

I hear that Mr S. Butler abuses me as ⁠⟨⁠a⁠⟩⁠ liar & scoundrel in his new book, but I ⁠⟨⁠do⁠⟩⁠ not intend to look at it—6

2
Francis Darwin had assisted CD with experimental work for Movement in plants.
3
Canary grass is Phalaris canariensis; cabbage is Brassica oleracea. CD and Francis had studied the light response of cotyledons of P. canariensis, and noted the localised sensitivity as well as differences in response-time and angle of inclination of seedlings grown in the dark compared with those grown in light (see Movement in plants, pp. 455–77).
4
The Darwins stayed in London from 7 to 11 December 1880 (CD’s ‘Journal’ (Appendix II)). On CD’s visitors while in London, see the letter to S. H. Haliburton, 13 December 1880 and n. 3.
6
Samuel Butler’s Unconscious memory contained a chapter titled ‘The manner in which Mr. Darwin met “Evolution, old and new”’ (Butler 1880, pp. 58–79); Butler accused CD and Ernst Krause of making unacknowledged use of Butler’s earlier work, Evolution, old and new (Butler 1879).

Manuscript Alterations and Comments

0.2 (Railway … S.E.R.)] parentheses added
4.2 pet] interl

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-12908F,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-12908F