Ɛpsilon

From William Yarrell   [c. 17 December 1838]

Extract from a letter written by Sir Robt. Heron to W.Y.

There is a breed of Pigs, size of the Chinese, with feet undivided—internally—: Like a horses foot some had them, and on crossing them, had some with two whole feet and two divided feet.

I have had Angora Rabbits for many years, at first only white ones, I then obtained a brown male, killed all the white males, and left him with 4 wives; the produce was white, black, brown and fawn colour’d the black in a few years prevailed to the exclusion of all the other colours.

I then obtained a pair of brown, and have now again all the colours except black, which I have no doubt will reappear, but the remarkable circumstance which appears to belong to this breed is that though I have frequently all the colours in one brood, there has never yet been two colours in any one Rabbit—1 Received Decr. 17th. 1838—

Lawrence’s example of the man with the scabrous skin. 2

CD annotations

‘like Piebald in colour’added ink
heavy scoring pencil and brown crayon
1.3 divided feet.] ‘(Dorkings feet. P. Chron)’3 added ink
2.4 other colours.] ‘2’ superimposed ink; circled ink
3.4 there has … Rabbit— ] scored pencil
‘Same as someone’s fact about Hamster & Bachman case of Squirrels — —’4 added pencil
Verso of last page: ‘Mr Yarrell tells me, he has seen several letters *from Ld. Western [interl] in the Morning Post from December 20th to January 4th about sheep & manner of breeding them bearing on his law:—look over them.—’5 ink; ‘Morning … sheep &’ ink over pencil; marked with large brace and‘1839?’ pencil ‘Appendixes to 2d Voyage of Parry. Richardson on wolves & dogs of N. America & Asia’6 ink over pencil, circled ink and pencil ‘Lawrence lectures of Man— | (Man with scaly skin)’ ink and pencil; partially underl
1
See Natural selection, p. 456, and Variation 2: 92 n. for CD’s use of this extract. He also refers to it in Notebook D (inside front cover): ‘Mem. for Eyton.— Sir. R. Heron’s case of breed of pigs with solid feet.—’ A passage in the manuscript of Variation (DAR 205.7), later cancelled, read: ‘In certain animals in a state of nature, when there has been no crossing, as with squirrels & hamsters, wholly white or black young appear far oftener than piebald or intermediate tints.’ (Natural selection, p. 456, R. Stauffer’s note).
2
Lawrence 1819, pp. 449–51 described a family in which the males had a thick horn-like covering to their skin, which was seemingly hereditary. The first case was described by Machin 1733.
3
CD refers here to a letter in The Poultry Chronicle for Wednesday, December 13, 1854, p. 355, which refers to crosses between Dorking and Spanish fowl. For CD’s use of this information see Natural Selection, p. 456, and Variation 2: 92 n.
4
Bachman 1838, p. 86.
5
Lord Western’s breeding of sheep is referred to in Variation 2: 198. William Yarrell’s law stated that the longer a character had been in the blood the more likely it was to be inherited (see Ospovat 1981, p. 46).
6
John Richardson’s zoological appendix to Parry 1824–5.

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-457,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-457