From Francis Galton   17 March 1870

My dear Darwin.

No good news.—

Bartlet¹ apprised me this morn^g. that it was a popular prejudice that young rabbits might not be looked at, reasonable care being taken, so we opened 2 boxes & examined the litters. The first contained 4 dead young ones all true silver greys. The second contained 5 lively young ones all true silver greys. One however has a largish light colored patch on its nose, but Bartlet tells me this is not unusual with silver greys as the very tips of their noses are often white. However this patch is somewhat large & there are faint hopes, I think, that it may prove more considerable than Bartlet believes.²

I have one more litter yet to come & hope to send you the result by Monday ev^g. post.³

I have coupled a new pair and re-coupled the 2 does whose litters have failed; one of them with a more suitable mate, & expect the following results

The quantity of blood transfused was only 1.25 per cent of the weight of the rabbits, which is the same thing as 30 oz of blood to an average man. I know this is a very small proportion of the whole amount of blood, but hope by a second operation on the old bucks & by improved operations on all the young ones to get a great deal more of alien qualities into their veins.

Very sincerely yours | Francis Galton.