From A. S. G. Canning   27 April 1874

Dear Sir

I am encouraged by your kind reception of my former letters, to trouble you with some further particulars relating to peafowl;¹ in case they may be of any use in your next edition of Variation of animals under Domestication. Respecting this work, I was informed by M^r Murrays people a few days ago, that a second edition was expected but not before next autumn.—² I observed in a work on Peafowl some time ago, the writer said ‘I never saw two Peacocks fight!”³ I cannot think this author can have been very observant; they are (in the breeding season) a remarkably pugnacious bird, more determindly & deliberately so if I may use the expression, than most other birds;⁴ what I have remarked very peculiar in their habits is,—that in the Spring & summer breeding time; the peacocks take each for himself a certain piece of ground, a small district, where he reigns supreme & shews off his train; they constantly dispute & fight on the boundaries of their respective dominions; & if one of them wanders or is driven into the middle of the others dominion he is chased away & runs in terror or flies from the other (even if he is a larger bird) till he reaches his own domain, when he instantly seems to regain courage, turns sharply round & faces his pursuer; I have often thrown food exactly between them, while disputing over the ‘boundary question’, & neither has ventured to take it, for fear of the other; whereas a few inches on either side would be safe for each to feed without harm from the other.—

Of course these details may be already known, or perhaps useless to you, in either case I hope you will excuse my troubling you with them.—

Believe me | Faithfully yrs | A S G Canning

C. Darwin, Esqre | &c. &c. &c.