WCP4776

[1]

Parkstone, Dorset.

May 2nd. 1890

R. Murray Esq.

Dear Sir

Your case for the mutilated cat producing tailless or imperfect-tailed kittens would be extremely interesting and valuable if it could be proved — (1) that that there was no imperfect-tailed male cat in the neighbourhood who might have been father of the kittens, — but if as you say, all her progeny have since been imperfectly tailed that would be improbable, — and (2) that the cat herself had not an imperfect tail before it was cut off, — and (3) that the mother [2] or father of the cat had quite perfect tails. If you have good evidence on all these points you should send an account of the facts to "Nature" in which — this week — there is an account of a similarly ^{short & crooked} tailed cat producing tailless or crook-tailed kittens; but this is nothing extraordinary because the common Malay cats have either stumpy or variously crooked tails ^{and the Manx cats the same}[.] Many abnormalities, when once produced naturally, [word illeg. crossed-out] are strongly heritable, while hitherto there is actually no good case (well proved) of a [3] mutilation being inherited, while there are many striking cases of non-inheritance — the docked tails of horses & dogs, the cramped feet of Chinese women, & the circumcision of the Jews, which after being constantly practised for 30 centuries is not in the slightest degree inherited.

Your case therefore would be most interesting if well-established.

Your very faithfully | Alfred R. Wallace [signature]

[4]

Dr A Russel Wallace¹