Ɛpsilon

To T. C. Eyton   26 [June 1857]1

Moor Park, Farnham | Surrey

26th

Dear Eyton

Your letter has been forwarded to me here, where I am staying at a Hydropathic establishment as my health has lately been very indifferent.— I thank you for the reference on Hybrid & for your very kind note.—2 I am delighted to hear what fine Natural History prospect you have before you.—

It is a new & interesting line on the growth of Bones of Birds: I was not at all aware that there was anything peculiar in that subject.3 My confounded health interferes terribly with all my work, but yet I am making steady progress in my Book on Variation of Species. & on domestic varieties.

As you are a great man for Horses, you might aid me, if not irksome to you, by looking out in Ireland or elswhere for any cases of Horses or Ponies with transverse bars on legs like those of zebra, or on shoulder & along the back, as with the ass. These stripes sometimes occur in duns, & mouse-coloured & chesnut horses; & I shd. be infinitely obliged for any cases of this kind.—4

I shd. most thoroughily enjoy visiting you at Eyton; but I am not likely to be in Shropshire soon.—

Pray believe me | Dear Eyton | Yours very truly | C. Darwin

1
The month and year are given by CD’s stay at Moor Park (16–30 June 1857).
2
Eyton’s letter has not been found. It was evidently a reply to CD’s letter to T. C. Eyton, 9 June [1857].
3
Eyton was at work on his Osteologia avium (Eyton 1867). A copy is in the Darwin Library–Down.
4
CD had previously asked Eyton for this information in his letter to T. C. Eyton, 9 June [1857]. See also letter to Gardeners’ Chronicle, [before 13 June 1857].

Manuscript Alterations and Comments

1.4 before] before omitted point
2.2 in] ‘i’ over ‘o’
3.2 Ireland] above del ‘Scotland’
3.3 the ass.] ‘the’ interl

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-2113,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-2113