Ɛpsilon

To J. B. Innes   10 May [1875]

Down, | Beckenham, Kent. | Railway Station | Orpington. S.E.R.

May 10th

Dear Innes

Your case of the rabbit is a curious one; but there is something very odd about the colours of young rabbits. There are breeds, which are invariably white whilst young & then become almost black; & other breeds which are at first black & then become almost white.— Most of these were aboriginally crossed breeds, & I shd suspect that the parents of Mrs. Innes-Brodies rabbit were of crossed origin.—1

Your account of your schools has interested me much, & all the more as on Saturday Ld. Young, who as Ld. Advocate introduced your school-boards, was lunching here, & was talking much about the Scotch schools.—2 He was remarking how odd it was that the voters who taxed themselves now spent very much more in their schools than was formerly done.—3 He did not know anything about the relative advantages of Scotch & English primary schools.— I have no news whatever to tell you about the neighbourhood, as I see, if that be possible, even fewer people than formerly.— Mr Duck, you will have heard, is dead,4 & we have had to appoint a new Trustee to the Friendly Club in his place, & the Committee elected Mr. Pearson.—5 By the way here is a wonderful piece of news, Mr Fflinden has forgiven Mr Pearson, & they are reconciled.—6 I have not been very well of late & have been working too hard in correcting the proofs of another of my everlasting books viz on Insectivorous Plants—which contains hardly anything about evolution.—7

We never cease to wish you had not left us.8

Yours very sincerely | Ch. Darwin

My wife desires me to say that the plants of your Aquilegia are doing well, but not nearly so forward as yours.9

Postmark: MY 10 75

1
Innes had told CD that a wild white rabbit, frequently watched by Eliza Mary Brodie Innes, was beginning to turn brown (letter from J. B. Innes, 7 May 1875). CD had discussed changes in the colour of rabbits in Variation 1: 109–12.
2
See letter from J. B. Innes, 7 May 1875. George Young, lord advocate of Scotland from 1869 to 1874, had established a national system of publicly funded compulsary elementary education in Scotland for children between the ages of five and thirteen with the passing of the Education (Scotland) Act in 1872 (ODNB).
3
The system of schools set up by the 1872 Education Act (Scotland) was partly funded by local property taxes (Strong 1909, p. 195). Only male property owners were eligible to vote in the 1870s.
4
George Francis Duck died in early 1875 (BMD (Death index)).
5
Charles Pearson was the schoolmaster at Down National School. The Down Friendly Society had been established by CD and Innes in 1850 (see Correspondence vol. 4, letter to J. S. Henslow, 17 January [1850] and n. 6); CD served as the treasurer for thirty years (LL 1: 142).
6
The need for forgiveness possibly stemmed from CD and Emma’s wish to continue to use the schoolroom as a reading room for working men during the winter (see Correspondence vol. 21, letter to Down School Board, [after 29 November 1873] and n. 4); the School Committee (which included Pearson) had agreed to the proposal but George Sketchley Ffinden, vicar of Down since 1871 and chairman of the School Committee, had not given his consent (Moore 1985, pp. 471–2).
7
CD finished correcting proofs of Insectivorous plants on 23 May 1875 (see CD’s ‘Journal’ (Appendix II)).
8
Innes was perpetual curate of Down from 1847 and vicar from 1868 to 1869, but from 1862 he had lived in Scotland after inheriting property there (Moore 1985, pp. 468–9).
9
Innes had given Emma Darwin some seeds of a variety of columbine that she had called ‘Aquilegia Brodii’ (see letter from J. B. Innes, 7 May 1875 and n. 3).

Manuscript Alterations and Comments

1.4 were] after del ‘are’
2.1 me much,] interl
3.2 been] interl

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-9975,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-9975