To Jonathan Peel   6 March [1868]¹

Dear Sir,

I thank you for your very obliging letter, & for your account of the Lonk Sheep.² It is very interesting & seems to me capitally written. I wish my fellow naturalists would read such articles, for some of them would think more of natural selection, if they appreciated more fully what man can do. At the same I must say that mere naturalists are coming round at a great rate, & very few of the younger men think each flea & bug was separately created. I am much obliged also for the case of the mountain ash³

You ask after my Brother,⁴ who sends his kind remembrances to you. I am writing this in his house, for I live in Kent. My Brother’s health is now very poor & often for long periods he is not able to go into Society, which is a great loss to him & I think I may add to his friends.—

For the chance of your ever having made any careful observations on the numerical relations of the sexes of Sheep, I sh^d. be very much obliged if you can tell me from your own knowledge, or from an apparently well-established belief whether more males or females are annually born; & whether on certain years more males or females are born.— If I do not hear, I will understand that you have not attended to this point.—

With my best thanks, I beg leave to remain | Dear Sir, | Yours faithfully | & obliged.— | Charles Darwin