To William Bernhard Tegetmeier 16 January [1866]
Down. | Bromley. | Kent. S.E.
Jan 16th
My dear Sir
At last after 10 months’ illness I am better & able daily to do one or two hours’ work, & so am going on with my everlasting volume.1 Therefore I want to know what progress has been made with the wood-blocks or rather drawings of the pigeons.—2 If not finished, I shd. wish no time to be lost.— Could you aid me in getting a common Dovecot pigeon not chequered (with wing-bars, & tail-bar) drawn, in order to show standard of comparison for the other breeds.3
Lastly, will you be so kind as to return me the Pigeon Book by Belgian man, as I want to consult it before long.4 Do you think you could get Mr Zurhorst to try his experiment again this Spring on the eggs from Cochin crossed by Spanish & let me see eggs.?—5
I hope that you & your family are all well—
Pray believe me | My dear Sir | Yours sincerely | Ch. Darwin
P.S. If there is a difficulty about getting a dead non-chequered Dovecot half-wild Pigeon for drawing, I could cut out a fairly good drawing out of Dixons Dovecot Book,6 but then the pigeon in comparison with others would not be in true proportion or scale.—
Footnotes
Bibliography
Chapuis, Félicien. 1865. Le pigeon voyageur belge. Verviers: Imprimerie de Ch. Vinche.
Correspondence: The correspondence of Charles Darwin. Edited by Frederick Burkhardt et al. 29 vols to date. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1985–.
Dixon, Edmund Saul. 1851. The dovecote and the aviary: being sketches of the natural history of pigeons and other domestic birds in a captive state, with hints for their management. London: John Murray.
Marginalia: Charles Darwin’s marginalia. Edited by Mario A. Di Gregorio with the assistance of Nicholas W. Gill. Vol. 1. New York and London: Garland Publishing. 1990.
Origin: On the origin of species by means of natural selection, or the preservation of favoured races in the struggle for life. By Charles Darwin. London: John Murray. 1859.
Variation: The variation of animals and plants under domestication. By Charles Darwin. 2 vols. London: John Murray. 1868.
Summary
What progress has been made with pigeon drawings for Variation?
Can WBT persuade Mr Zurhorst to repeat a pigeon experiment?
Letter details
- Letter no.
- DCP-LETT-4977
- From
- Charles Robert Darwin
- To
- William Bernhard Tegetmeier
- Sent from
- Down
- Source of text
- Archives of the New York Botanical Garden (Charles Finney Cox Collection)
- Physical description
- ALS 4pp
Please cite as
Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 4977,” accessed on 29 November 2024, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-4977.xml
Also published in The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, vol. 14