To Philip Lutley Sclater   12 May [1862]

Down. | Bromley. | Kent. S.E.

May 12th

Dear Sclater

Mr Bartlett told me at the Gardens that the Japanned Peacock (I forget at moment your name) appeared amongst Mr Gurney’s birds.1 As he is an ornithologist perhaps you know him & if so would you have the great kindness to write & ask particulars; or if not can you tell me his address & I would write as a stranger. The chief point would be to know whether his birds appeared pure & whether any Japanned Peacocks lived anywhere near, so that there could have been a recent cross. I shd. be very much obliged if you would kindly aid me & the point no doubt will interest you.—

Yours very sincerely | C. Darwin

Endorsement: ‘May 1862’

1
Philip Lutley Sclater was secretary to the Zoological Society of London. Abraham Dee Bartlett was superintendent of the society’s gardens in Regents Park, London. CD was working on material for chapter 8 of Variation (see letter to William Darwin Fox, 12 May [1862], n. 6). In Variation 1: 291, CD stated that, through Sclater, he had received information from Hudson Gurney about his having reared ‘a pair of black-shouldered peacocks from the common kind’. Sclater believed, in contrast to CD’s view (see letter to William Darwin Fox, 12 May [1862], n. 6), that the ‘japanned’ peacock should be regarded as a distinct species from the common form, and named it Pavo nigripennis (Sclater 1860).

Manuscript Alterations and Comments

1.4 can you] interl
1.6 recent] interl

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-3543,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-3543