To G. J. Romanes   24 January 1881

My dear Romanes,

On receipt of your letter, I made enquiries & found that young pigs could be purchased for about 30/- each, on the premises where they had been born. But there is an insurmountable difficulty at present in the way of your experiment¹   The owner of the pigs said he could not allow them even to cross the road without their being first examined by an inspector & then getting an order from a magistrate, & no magistrate would allow a pig at present to be turned loose as infection is about. Our immense snow-drifts would be another obstacle. So you must give up the attempt.

You had better keep the enclosed letter from Fabre as I shall never use it—²

Yours very sincerely | Charles Darwin