Ɛpsilon

From W. B. Dawkins   15 January 1875

The Owens College, | Manchester,

15/1/75

My dear Sir,

In Variation under Domestication 1. 85, you quote from ‘an early record’ the interesting fact that white Cows with red ears stood to the dark cattle as 100 to 150.1 This point as proving the relative size of the two breeds is very important, and as I am unable to get any original authority for it in the early Welsh records I am compelled to ask you to be kind enough to give me the reference. I cannot also light on Youatts authority for the fine of 400 white cattle in the days of King John.2 If, without very much trouble you can help me to these references, I shall be very grateful: for I have been fishing vainly after them for 4 years, and have kept back an essay on the origin of the British Domestic Cattle which ought to have been printed, till I could get them.3

So far as I know the large white domestic cattle were unknown in Britain till the English invasion,4 altho’ they were of Neolithic age on the Continent.

With all good wishes for the year. | I am | My dear Sir | Yours truly | W. Boyd Dawkins

Charles Darwin Es F.R.S.

1
In Variation 1: 85, CD mentioned an early record of compensation of 100 red-eared cows or 150 dark or black cows being demanded for certain offences against the Welsh princes. The record was described in Youatt 1834, p. 48. CD reasoned that the red-eared cows were probably large white cattle with red ears and that the dark cows were a smaller variety still found in Wales.
2
In Youatt 1834, p. 48, William Youatt told the story of a present of 400 cows and a bull, all white with red ears, sent by Maud de Breos (in Youatt’s spelling: she is also known as Matilda de Briouze in ODNB) to King John’s wife, Isabella of Angoulême.
3
Dawkins probably refers to the research he published in Dawkins 1878, pp. xiv–xxi; the first thirty-eight pages of this treatise were written in 1872, according to a note on the first page.
4
English invasion: i.e. the arrival of Angles, Saxons, and Jutes in the fifth century.

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-9819,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-9819