My dear George

I am glad that M^r. Huth is thinking of trying to experiment himself on rabbits.—² I wonder that formerly it never occurred to me to do so.— As far as I can see any hearty common breed would do. I would avoid the tender & perhaps already closely interbred lop-eared fancy breeds & Angoras.—

There is a little book “Pigeons & Rabbits” published by Routledge 1854. (author calling himself Delamer, but really Rev^d. E. S. Dixon) which I sh^d. think could be trusted about treatment & age for breeding &c.—³ If M^r Huth happened to have any servant who had kept rabbits as a boy it w^d be a great aid.— Our old James had done so; & by giving him a quarterly premium I managed to keep my experimental rabbits in excellent health.—⁴ If I were M^r H. I w^d not complicate the experiment by trying about albinism.—⁵ As soon as 2 or 3 pairs of young of each generation came to breeding age, I would kill off all the old ones, so as to prevent accidents from crossing.— It is wonderfully difficult to prevent accidents.— I w^d. never trust to less than 3 pairs in each generation, especially in the later generations, on account of chance deaths.— I w^d. keep conditions as uniform as possible.— I think the rabbits of 1^st & succeeding generations ought to be weighed at some fixed age, say 6 months. After 4 or 5 or 6 generations of matching brothers & sisters, I w^d. try the effect of a cross with some quite new blood.

If you think that M^r H. c^d decipher my scrawl, you c^d send him this; otherwise you c^d. copy it.

Yours affectionately C. Darwin

An awful Russian bore has been here & has tired me, so I can tell no news.⁶