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To G. J. Romanes   15 November 1880

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

Nov. 15th 80

My dear Romanes

I have just read your article.1 As far as my judgment goes it is excellent & could not be improved.— You have skimmed the cream off the whole subject. It is also very clear.— One or two sentences near the beginning seem rather too strong; as I have marked with pencil, without attending to style.—2 I have made one or two small suggestions.— If you can find my account in Nature,* (last summer I think) about the hybrid Chinese-gees inter se, it wd be worth adding & wd. require only 2 or 3 lines.3 I do not suppose you wish to add but in my paper on Lythrum & I think requoted in Var. under Dom. Vol 2. 2d. Edit, bottom of page 167 I have a good sentence about a man finding 2 vars of Lythrum & testing them by fertility & coming to egregiously wrong conclusion.—4

I think your idea of reference to best books & short history of subject good.—5

By the way you have made me quite proud of my chapter on Hybridism; I had utterly forgotten how good it appears when dressed up in your article!!6

Yours very sincerly | Ch. Darwin

I have had a hunt & found my little article on Geese, which please hereafter return.—

Footnotes

1
Romanes had sent proof-sheets of his article on hybridism for the Encyclopaedia Britannica (G. J. Romanes 1881; see letter from G. J. Romanes, 13 November 1880).
2
Romanes’s article began with the etymology of ‘hybrid’ and its supposed Greek source, ‘hubris’, as ‘an insult or outrage, with special reference to lust; hence an outrage on nature, a mongrel’ (G. J. Romanes 1881, p. 422).
3
The article quoted CD’s discussion in Origin, p. 253, of fertile hybrids produced from crosses between the common and the Chinese goose; Romanes added a note referring to CD’s letter to Nature, 15 December [1879] (Correspondence vol. 27), which contained further details of the case, including experiments by CD himself (see G. J. Romanes 1881, p. 425 and n.). The Chinese goose is a domestic variety of the wild swan goose (Anser cygnoides). The common European domestic goose is a variety of the wild greylag goose (Anser anser).
4
For the description of possible mistaken conclusions about Lythrum salicaria (purple loosestrife) from a hypothetical botanist, see Variation 2d ed. 2: 167–8; CD’s earlier paper on the subject was ‘Three forms of Lythrum salicaria’.
5
Romanes’s article included a long list of botanical works and authorities on hybridism, some of which were suggested by CD (see letter to G. J. Romanes, 14 November [1880], and G. J. Romanes 1881, p. 426).
6
Romanes quoted at length from CD’s chapter on hybridism in Origin, pp. 245–78; and from the extended discussion of the subject in Variation 2: 178–91.

Bibliography

Romanes, George John. 1881b. Hybridism. EB 9th ed. 12: 422–6.

‘Three forms of Lythrum salicaria’: On the sexual relations of the three forms of Lythrum salicaria. By Charles Darwin. [Read 16 June 1864.] Journal of the Linnean Society (Botany) 8 (1865): 169–96. [Collected papers 2: 106–31.]

Variation 2d ed.: The variation of animals and plants under domestication. By Charles Darwin. 2d edition. 2 vols. London: John Murray. 1875.

Summary

Comments on GJR’s article on hybridisation.

Recommends his article ["Fertility and hybrids from the Chinese and common goose", Collected papers 2: 219–20].

Discusses crosses of Lythrum.

Letter details

Letter no.
DCP-LETT-12820
From
Charles Robert Darwin
To
George John Romanes
Sent from
Down
Source of text
American Philosophical Society (Mss.B.D25.575)
Physical description
ALS 4pp

Please cite as

Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 12820,” accessed on 19 April 2024, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-12820.xml

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