Ɛpsilon

To J. J. Weir   29 December 1881

Down, Beckenham.

Dec. 29, 1881.

My dear Sir

I thank you for your “Christmas Card”, and heartily return your good wishes.1 What you say about the coats of mules is new to me, as is the statement about hermaphroditism in hybrid moths.2 This latter fact seems to me particularly curious; and to make a very wild hypothesis I should be inclined to account for it by reversion to the primordial condition of the two sexes being united; for I think it certain that hybridism does lead to reversion.3

I keep fairly well, but have not much strength, and feel very old.

My dear Sir | Yours sincerely | Charles Darwin.

Copy

1
See letter from J. J. Weir, 27 December 1881. Weir had sent his observations ‘in lieu of a Christmas card’.
3
In his discussion of inheritance in Variation 2: 372, CD had remarked, ‘Reversion is not a rare event, depending on some unusual or favourable combination of circumstances, but occurs so regularly with crossed animals and plants, and so frequently with uncrossed breeds, that it is evidently an essential part of the principle of inheritance.’

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-13587,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-13587