To W. B. Tegetmeier   9 July [1863]1

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

July 9th

My dear Sir

I am very much obliged for your note2 & am much pleased to hear that you are progressing with the breeding experiments.— I shall be very curious to hear next summer whether the crossed fowls are perfectly fertile.3 I believe that I proposed to send you five guineas, which I now beg leave to enclose, as a sum which would probably repay you for actual cost of breeding the crossed fowls.— Will you kindly acknowledge its safe receipt?—4

I am much obliged for the “Intellectual Observer” which seems an excellent periodical.— I have read, as yet, only your interesting little paper:5 I had not thought about silky plumage, but had said something like what you say about wingless birds in the Origin.6

I shd. be very much obliged if you would send me paragraphs about the Cats, & please say whether they are to be returned. I am sure that the statement is generally correct.—7

I hope you are well & no doubt very busy. I have been having a bad time for many months, but just now am better & am making rather quicker progress than hitherto with my book on “Variation under Domestication”.— But I do not suppose I shall be ready for the M.S on fowls, with your corrections, for six months longer.—8

With very sincere thanks for all your kindness— | My dear sir | Yours sincerely | Ch. Darwin

1
The year is established by the relationship between this letter and the letter from W. B. Tegetmeier, 29 June – 7 July 1863.
4
See Correspondence vol. 10, letter to W. B. Tegetmeier, 27 [December 1862]. No note from Tegetmeier acknowledging receipt of the money has been found.
5
In his letter to CD of 29 June – 7 July 1863, Tegetmeier enclosed a copy of the April 1863 number of the Intellectual Observer, a monthly magazine of popular science edited by Henry James Slack, in which Tegetmeier 1863b was published.
6
See letter from W. B. Tegetmeier, 29 June – 7 July 1863 and n. 8. The reference is to Origin, pp. 134–5.
8
CD refers to his work on the draft manuscript of Variation (see ‘Journal’ (Correspondence vol. 11, Appendix II)). CD had sent Tegetmeier the draft manuscript of his chapter on domestic fowls for comment in June 1861 (see Correspondence vol. 9, letter to W. B. Tegetmeier, 14 June [1861]). See also Correspondence vol. 10, letter to W. B. Tegetmeier, 27 [December 1862]. Tegetmeier did not return the manuscript with his comments until 1865 (see letter to W. B. Tegetmeier, [7 April 1865], Calendar no. 4806).

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-4238,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-4238