From Alfred Newton 1 March 1867
10 Beaufort Gardens | S.W.
1 March 1867.
My dear Sir,
On Tuesday last I met in a birdstuffer’s shop at Brighton an intelligent young gentleman by name Booth.1 He told me that last summer he had opportunities of studying the breeding habits of the Dotterel (Eudromias morinellus) in Scotland and volunteered—without any leading question—the information that the cocks “looked after the young”, and that the hens seemed to care very little about their offspring.
The Dotterel as you no doubt are aware is one of the species in which the hens are much more brilliantly coloured than the cocks.2
Believe me | Yrs. very truly | Alfred Newton
I asked Mr. Booth, (after he had told me what I have mentioned) whether he had taken the trouble to ascertain the sexes of the birds he killed by dissection, & he said he had done so, & shewed me a very dingy looking cock bird that he had obtained while anxiously “looking after” its young.
CD annotations
Footnotes
Bibliography
Descent: The descent of man, and selection in relation to sex. By Charles Darwin. 2 vols. London: John Murray. 1871.
Summary
Male dotterels take care of young and are less brilliantly coloured than females.
Letter details
- Letter no.
- DCP-LETT-5426
- From
- Alfred Newton
- To
- Charles Robert Darwin
- Sent from
- London, Beaufort Gardens, 10
- Source of text
- DAR 84.1: 28–9
- Physical description
- ALS 3pp †
Please cite as
Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 5426,” accessed on 29 March 2024, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-5426.xml
Also published in The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, vol. 15