Ɛpsilon

From T. C. Eyton   23 August [1868]1

Eyton, | Wellington, | Salop.

Dear Darwin

I shall send per rail tomorrow of which I beg your acceptance a copy of my Osteologia avium now complete   I have otained several more rare skeletons since descrptions of which will form an appendix and will appear as soon as my eyes get well enough to work at them which I have no doubt they will as soon as cool weather comes as they are much better for the last cool day or two2   What a capital address that was of Hookers at Norwich3   I intended to have been there but eyes said no. I have amoung other skeletons obtained that of Opisthocomus cristatus a bird that has been placed in all sorts of places but is a true guan.4 Huxley borrowed of me and is I believe going to publish a paper on it in the zoological proceedings.5 I have got a lot of pigs heads from different parts   their variation is extraordinary.6 I sowed this year some convolvulus in front of the house   some of the blossoms on the same plant are pink some purple and some white.7

yours truly | Tho C Eyton

Aug 23

1
The year is established by the reference to Joseph Dalton Hooker’s presidential address at the meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, which was held in Norwich in 1868.
2
The main part of Eyton’s Osteologia avium was published in 1867; supplements were published in 1869 and 1875 (Eyton 1867–75). There is a copy in the Darwin Library–Down.
3
See n. 1, above.
4
Opisthocomus cristatus is now Opisthocomus hoazin, the hoatzin. The taxonomic placement of Opisthocomus was controversial (see Newton 1893–6). Eyton discussed the bird in the second supplement to Osteologia avium (Eyton 1867–75, 3: 8–9), suggesting that it was closely allied to the guans (family Cracidae, modern order Galliformes). It is now placed in its own family (Opisthocomidae) and sometimes in its own order (Opisthocomiformes), though some authorities place it in the Galliformes or Cuculiformes (Birds of the world 3: 24–32).
5
Eyton may be referring to a paper by Thomas Henry Huxley published in the May/June 1868 issue of the Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London (T. H. Huxley 1868a). The remarks on Opisthocomus cristatus are in ibid., pp. 304–13. In this paper Huxley discussed the affinities of the genus and assigned it to its own group, the Hetermorphae, while linking it in evolutionary terms with what he called the Gallo-columbine series (ibid., pp. 311–12).
6
CD discussed modifications of the skulls of domesticated pigs in Variation 1: 71–3.
7
In Variation 1: 407–8, CD wrote that instances of annuals producing different coloured flowers on the same plant were comparatively rare, and gave Convolvulus tricolor as an example.

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-6328,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-6328