To W. B. Tegetmeier   6 February [1857]1

Down Bromley Kent

Feb. 6th

My dear Sir

Many thanks for all the many valuable kindnesses in your letter.

I certainly shall be very much obliged for an egg or two of any Rumpless Fowl.— I am anxious just to see how early in our domestic breeds a rudimentary organ is rudimentary.2

If you hatch any for yourself, it would save me trouble, & not cost you any more to send me per Post, an egg within (ie before) about 24 hours of the period of hatching; & for this I shd be very much obliged, though it is unreasonable to rob you of your valuable Birds. If you do not intend hatching,, I shd. be very glad of an egg to hatch.—

Very many thanks, also, for Black Drake, for which I cannot send till next Thursday. The carrier shall ask whether he can pay Carstang 6s 6d for it, as it will save my paying you, for it.—3 I have not as yet noticed much difference in skeletons of Ducks, but I shall now have all the principal Breeds.4

I am very glad to hear of Mr Gulliver’s Runt; I am now well off for skeletons of all the Breeds; as I have splendid Carrier from Mr Hayne.5

Your letter is full of good news for me; as I was the other day wishing there had ever been any account of crosses between Pheasants & different breeds of Poultry.—6

With very sincere thanks for your great kindness to me, pray believe me, my dear Sir | Yours sincerely | Ch. Darwin

P.S. | By oddest chance this very morning I have heard of a German Pouter on sale! so will not trouble you.—7

1
Dated by the relationship to the letter to W. B. Tegetmeier, 11 February [1857].
2
CD later discussed this topic in Variation 2: 315–18, where he explained the significance of the relatively greater development of rudimentary organs early in life. Rumpless fowls, however, are not mentioned.
3
Mr Carstang of Ship Tavern Passage, Leadenhall Market, London (CD’s Address book (Down House MS)).
4
The osteological differences of ducks are discussed in Variation 1: 282–6.
5
Watson W. Hayne.
6
Tegetmeier described a cross between a male of the common wild pheasant and a hen of the domestic Hamburgh fowl, reported to him by Edward Hewitt, in part 10 of Tegetmeier 1856–7, which had appeared in January 1857. CD’s copy of the work is in the Darwin Library–CUL. This passage is annotated (ibid., pp. 123–4).
7
In a deleted postscript to this letter, CD had requested a common Dutch or German pouter (see Manuscript alterations and comments).

Manuscript Alterations and Comments

2.2 (ie before)] interl
2.4 you of] ‘you’ interl
3.3 noticed] after del ‘f’
7.1 By] after del ‘When you next see Carstang, I wish you would do a little commission for me, ask him the next time he sees a common Dutch or German Pouter in market, short-legged & altogether inferior to our Pouters, to buy one for me if he can get it, as I have been told, for a few shillings & send it by enclosed address—’

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-2048,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-2048