Ɛpsilon

From Henry Lee   21 January 1868

at Hurstbourne Park | Whitchurch

21st. Jany 1868

Trout taking for Ova1

27 females full & ready to spawn
13 do spent
6 do nearly spent
16 do not ready
105 males with milt
19 do spent
26 Bright in good condition

Memo: 1 of the males was full of milt though only two years old. 1 female was full of white or very pale eggs.

Henry Lee

CD annotations

In table:
‘16 do not ready’] ‘16’ underl pencil; ‘62’ added pencil
‘26 Bright] ‘26’ underl pencil ‘Males 150’ added below pencil ‘150’ altered from ‘140’ red crayon
Top of letter: ‘Lord Portsmouth’s Park’2 pencil

End of letter:

62
150
212

1
CD summarised the information in this table in Descent 1: 308: ‘Mr. H. Lee informs me that out of 212 trout … in Lord Portsmouth’s park, 150 were males and 62 females’. The information appears in a general discussion of the proportion of the sexes in animals (Descent 1: 300–15).
2
Hurstbourne Park, near the village of Hurstbourne Priors in Hampshire, was the seat of the earl of Portsmouth (National gazetteer of Great Britain and Ireland 1868).

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-5793,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-5793