Ɛpsilon

From F. P. Cobbe   25 December [1872]1

26, Hereford Sq

Xmas

Dear Mr. Darwin,

I think the enclosed story of a dog-suicide will interest you. It seems to be better authenticated than any I had heard of when I wrote my article.2 It is sent to me by Revd. C. Conybeare of Itchen Stoke.3 Perhaps some of your party will kindly return it to me when you have read it— Miss Lloyd4 & I have come to Brighton for Xmas but intend to return to Hereford Sq in a day or two—

A friend of mine begs me to tell you that she has twice seen an Ourang Outang stare a baboon out of countenance:—the baboon retreating before the fixed & threatening gaze of the Ourang. tho’ there was no minatory action whatever

Very truly yrs. | Frances P. Cobbe

The animal my friend believes to have been an Ourang was kept in the Crystal Palace5

1
The year is established by the relationship between this letter and the letter to F. P. Cobbe, 28 November 1872.
2
In the letter to F. P. Cobbe, 28 November 1872, CD had doubted Cobbe’s claim that dogs committed suicide ([Cobbe] 1872a, pp. 445–6). Cobbe’s enclosure, presumably returned to her as requested, has not been found.
5
There is no record of an orang-utan being kept at the Crystal Palace (the glass structure erected in Hyde Park for the Great Exhibition in 1851, and later moved to Sydenham). It is possible that one was exhibited at the Crystal Palace; in 1864, for example, Wombwell’s Menagerie displayed wild animals there (see Piggott 2004, p. 184).

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-8696,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-8696