From George Cupples   11 January 1869

The Cottage | Guard Bridge | Fifeshire. N.B.

Jany. 11/69.

Dear Mr Darwin,

Thanks for your kind letter.1 I have no doubt I can get exact information on the point you refer to—and by this post write on fallow-deer to Mr Wright (whom I shall request to communicate direct with you.)2 I also write to Mr Macneil of Colonsay as to red-deer and roe-deer—and about the same to my friend the head-forester of the great Breadalbane forest of Black Mount, who has been more than 40 years among deer.3 I shall write to you with their replies as to all three species.

My brochure on deerhounds, I hope, may get out this year—but has been kept back by other literary matters.4

Yours very truly | George Cupples

Charles Darwin, Esqr.

Cupples refers to Archibald McNeill and Peter Robertson. McNeill had sent information to Cupples on the size of male and female deer-hounds and Robertson had given information on the proportion of the sexes in the breed (see Correspondence vol. 16, letter from George Cupples, 13 July 1868).
Cupples’s only work on deer-hounds (Cupples 1894) was published posthumously.

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-6548,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-6548