Ɛpsilon

To W. D. Fox   17 December [1857]

Down Bromley Kent

Dec. 17th

My dear Fox

I am very much obliged for your Rabbit Letter: I have forgotten your having before mentioned to me this breed: I presume it is that called at Shows the “Himalaya breed”.—1 You call it black nosed & brown-tailed; I suppose the ears are black. If not, & you could get me an old accidentally dead specimen I shd. be very glad, but I can hardly doubt it is the so-called Himalaya, one of which I have now skeletonising from Zoolog. Socy.— I am particularly glad to hear about this variety being so true: its history has been published, & I have it somewhere, but for the life of me I cannot tell where.2 It is was produced, I think, from a cross of two sub -breeds of the French Silver Grey Rabbit.— I know it is closely connected with Silver Greys. If the ears are not black, will you tell me: all that I have seen had red eyes.—

There is one odd point in this breed, which will serve to identify it, the young are quite white & the black ears &c appear subsequently.—3 I had forgotten that the under side of tail was brown.— By the way Silver-Grey Rabbits are quite black when born, a curious contrast with so called Himalaya.—

I have heard from Mr Woodd & will second him & if possible attend the voting.—4

In regard to Douche you will find the same water will last sweet, especially with charcoal floating on it, for a long time.5

Yours affectionately | C. Darwin

1
CD mentioned the Himalayan breed of domestic rabbits in the letter to W. D. Fox, 14 June [1856].
2
In Variation 1: 108 n. 15, CD cited an article in the Cottage Gardener 18 (1857): 141–2, on the origin of the Himalayan rabbits. The author believed the breed resulted from a cross between a tame silver gray doe and a silver gray buck that had ‘one-eighth of wild blood in him.’ (Cottage Gardener 18 (1857): 141).
3
In Variation 1: 109, CD cited Fox as having found that on occasion in these rabbits ‘the young are born of a very pale grey colour’.
4
Charles Henry Lardner Woodd, Fox’s brother-in-law and a geologist with whom CD had earlier corresponded (see Correspondence vol. 4, letter to C. H. L. Woodd, 4 March 1850), was seeking membership of the Athenæum Club (see Correspondence vol. 7, letters to George Bentham, 27 January [1858], and W. D. Fox, 31 January [1858]). Woodd is not listed in Francis Gledstanes Waugh, Members of the Athenæum Club, 1824 to 1887 (London, [1888]).
5
CD had erected a douche in the garden of Down House in 1849 to enable him to continue the cold-water treatment that he had begun at James Manby Gully’s hydropathic establishment in Malvern (see Correspondence vol. 4, letters to Susan Darwin, [19 March 1849], and to W. D. Fox, 4 September [1850]). By 1853, CD no longer used the douche (see Correspondence vol. 5, letter to Edward Cresy, 29 April [1853]).

Manuscript Alterations and Comments

1.1 have] over ‘had’
1.3 brown-tailed;] semicolon over colon
1.9 I know … Silver Greys.] added
2.3 that the] ‘the’ interl

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-2187,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-2187