WCP4217

Letter (WCP4217.4282)

[1]

Parkstone, Dorset.

Feb[uar]y 7th 1891

Dear Mr Cockerell

Yours with L[or]d Walsingham’s & other notes received with thanks. Your former letter (of Feb. 2.) giving Romanes’1 reply to you set me going & I immediately wrote to Galton2. I enclose his reply, which please return when you are writing next. I then sat down & sketched a series of a dozen sets of experiments to test the two questions of "hereditary3 of acquired characters" and the "amount of sterility in the hybrid between closely allied species", — and also a few to test the questions of instinct in nest-building, and the [2] "homing" power of dogs, cats, &c. These I am now sending to him & shall them receive his objections to them as affording tests. In the mean time will you try & formulate a few experiments which would serve as Crucial tests of the question of the "heredity of individually acquired characters". You may hit on some that will meet the objections he will probably make to mine.

I do not think there will be any difficulty in getting good observers in paid servants under the [3] supervision of a Committee.

Yours very faithfully | Alfred R Wallace [signature]

1
Refers to George John Romanes (1848-1894) an English evolutionary biologist and physiologist.
2
Refers to Sir Francis Galton, a tropical explorer, anthropologist and eugenicist and a cousin of Charles Darwin.
3
A ‘y’ has been written over the last three letters of ‘hereditary’ so that the word say ‘heredity’.

Editorial information

Status: Draft transcription [Letter (WCP4217.4282)]

For more information about the transcriptions and metadata, see https://wallaceletters.myspecies.info/content/epsilon

Revision history

Transcribed by Sloyan, Victoria [2012-09-17] Transcription checked by Catchpole, Caroline [2013-01-15]

Published letter (WCP4217.6901)

[1] [p. 874]

Your former letter (of Feb. 2) giving Romanes'1 reply to you, sent me going and I immediately wrote to Galton2. I enclose his reply, which please return when you are writing next. I then sat down and sketched a series of a dozen sets of experiments to test the two questions of "heredity of acquired characters" and "amount of sterility in the hybrids between closely allied species,"—and also a few to test the questions of instinct in nest building, and the "homing" power of dogs, cats, etc. These I am now sending to him and shall then receive his objections to them as affording tests. In the meantime will you try and formulate a few experiments which would serve as crucial tests of the question of the "heredity of individually acquired characters?" You may hit on some that will meet the objections he will probably make to mine. I do not think there will be any difficulty in getting good observers in paid servants under the supervision of a committee.

1
Romanes, George John (1848-1894). Canadian-born British evolutionary biologist and physiologist.
2
Galton, Francis (1822-1911). British biostatistician, polymath and founder of eugenics. One of the key figures in 19th Century research into heredity. Half-cousin of Charles Darwin.

Editorial information

Status: Draft transcription [Published letter (WCP4217.6901)]

For more information about the transcriptions and metadata, see https://wallaceletters.myspecies.info/content/epsilon

Revision history

Transcribed by Sherwood, Danni [2020-07-28] Transcription checked by Lo, Yen [2020-10-30]

Please cite as “WCP4217,” in Beccaloni, G. W. (ed.), Ɛpsilon: The Alfred Russel Wallace Collection accessed on 27 April 2024, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/wallace/letters/WCP4217