To Asa Gray   15 March [1870]1

Down. | Beckenham. | Kent. S.E.

March 15th

My dear Gray

You & Mrs. Gray have been very good, & I thank you for your letters & enclosures.—2 If Mrs Gray ever learns anything authentic about the nursing of her dog, I am sure she will inform me.— Two days ago my wife read a passage to me from Miss Mitfords life, minutely describing a dog, which had been nursed by a cat & which licked its paws! But as this is a second-hand account, it will not do to quote; & the description of the cat-like habits of this dog was too much even for my capacious gullet.3

Whenever you have any communication with Agassiz, pray give him my cordial thanks for his kind message & for his information, which I much feared would prove negative.4 I wish with all my heart that I could feel that I deserved what Alex. A. says of me.5

We have just returned from a week in London, where we went for a rest to me, as I was pretty well worn out.6 I find the man-essay very interesting but very difficult; & the difficulties of the Moral sense has caused me much labour.7 But as Hooker disrespectfully says of me, “oh you will wriggle out of anything”.8 But as I tell him, he has become quite as good a wriggler as I am.— He is awfully busy & we did not see him, which was a great loss.

I suppose you will have seen some notice of Round Isld. off Mauritius: the diavolo himself would not be able to explain how the plants & animals got distributed on these 2 islands.—9 I have just moved your Droseras into the Greenhouse; but we do not know whether they are dead or alive.—10

Your’s ever affectionately | Ch. Darwin

1
The year is established by the relationship between this letter and the letters from Asa and J. L. Gray, 14 February 1870.
2
See letters from Asa and J. L. Gray, 14 February 1870.
3
CD refers to Mary Russell Mitford and Mitford 1870. Mitford had been told of a King Charles spaniel that had been nursed by a cat (Mitford 1870, 2: 276–7): He is as afraid of rain as his foster-mother; will never, if possible to avoid it, set his paw in a wet place; licks his feet two or three times a day, for the purpose of washing his face, which operation he performs in the true cattish position, sitting up on his tail; will watch a mousehole for hours together; and has, in short, all the ways, manners, habits, and disposition of his wet-nurse, the cat.
5
CD refers to Alexander Agassiz, whom he had met in 1869 (see letter to Fritz Müller, 1 December [1869]). It is not known what Agassiz had been saying about CD.
6
The Darwins had been in London from 5 to 12 March 1870 (Emma Darwin’s diary (DAR 242)).
7
CD had been working on the second and third chapter of Descent, ‘Comparison of the mental powers of man and the lower animals’.
8
Joseph Dalton Hooker and CD had long joked about CD’s ability to ‘wriggle’ out of difficulties; see for example Correspondence vol. 9, letter from J. D. Hooker, 7 November [1861].
9
See letter to J. D. Hooker, 21 February [1870] and n. 2. Diavolo: devil.
10
Gray had sent CD specimens of Drosera filiformis, the thread-leaved sundew, in 1869; see letter from Asa Gray, 20 October 1869 and n. 1.

Manuscript Alterations and Comments

0.1 Beckenham] before del ‘Bromley’
3.2 very difficult] ‘very’ interl
4.3 your] interl

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-7132,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-7132