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To T. C. Eyton   9 June [1857]1

Down Bromley Kent

June 9th

Dear Eyton

I must thank you for the sheets completing your Catalogue received this morning.2 What a superb collection you have: I am quite astounded at it!

I fear that you have not been able to find out whether the half bred African Pigs of Lord Hills’ were fertile, which I regret as it would have made your capital case on Pigs perfect.3 How go on the skeletons of dogs &c &c?—4

By the way I mentioned in a former letter that I had a skin with skull in & legs of a pure W. African domestic dog; but I presume you do not care about it.—5 Some day I will send it to Brit. Mus. if of no use to you.—

Believe me dear Eyton | Yours very sincerely | C. Darwin

P.S. Do you breed horses? If you did & would make a few observations for me merely on the colouring of colts of different colours, it would be of much use to me, & I do not think troublesome;6 but I daresay you have your hands quite full enough with your own work.—

Can you tell me whether the convolutions in the Trachea of the male of the same species of Bird ever varies much?—

1
Dated by reference to other letters in the Eyton correspondence (see nn. 5 and 6, below).
2
CD refers to Eyton’s Catalogue of the species of birds in his possession (Eyton 1856), which was issued in parts. A copy of the work is in the Darwin Pamphlet Collection–CUL.
3
In Eyton 1837a, Eyton had mentioned the case of a litter of pigs from a cross between Rowland Hill’s African boar and a female common pig, stating ‘time will show whether they will again be fruitful’ (Eyton 1837a, p. 23). CD cited the case in Variation 1: 74.
4
See Correspondence vol. 5, letters to T. C. Eyton, 25 October [1855] and 3 December [1855].
6
For CD’s interest in the colouring of horses, see the letter to J. D. Hooker, 5 June [1857] and letter to T. C. Eyton, 26 [June 1857].

Manuscript Alterations and Comments

2.2 regret] over illeg
5.2 colts] over ‘cots’
5.2 me,] comma over full stop
6.1 same] underl pencil

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-2103,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-2103