From Robert Scot Skirving [1860?]1
Last year I had 1,200 killed in one week on one field.2 A rather distinguished naturalist in Scotland insists they are not birds of passage, yet I know I have shot them with acorns in their crop that never grew here, & the keeper of the May Island light in the Firth of Forth says he has seen them arrive there in a state of exhaustion.3 The question of these migrations has been discussed in Agricultural Clubs. ⟨In the past⟩ members [killed last winter] there ⟨section missing⟩ whether one was ⟨section missing⟩ why not millions?
I have only now to ask pardon for this intrusion— unwarranted on my part, as, in begging for information as to the clover plant, I presume not to think I can in any way return more than thanks.
I am | Your Obt & faithful Serv | R Scot Skirving
CD annotations
Footnotes
Bibliography
Correspondence: The correspondence of Charles Darwin. Edited by Frederick Burkhardt et al. 29 vols to date. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1985–.
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.
Summary
Tells of shooting wood-pigeons that had in their crops acorns that did not grow locally.
[Fragment of letter glued to 2197.]
Letter details
- Letter no.
- DCP-LETT-2196
- From
- Robert Scot Skirving
- To
- Charles Robert Darwin
- Sent from
- unstated
- Source of text
- DAR 205.2: 250a
- Physical description
- ALS 2pp inc †
Please cite as
Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 2196,” accessed on 25 April 2024, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-2196.xml
Also published in The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, vol. 8