From W. W. Reade 25 September 1871
11 St. Mary Abbot’s Terrace | Kensington
Sept. 25. .71
My dear Sir
I enclose the giraffe passage.1 May not the use of the neck as a watch-tower be a case of secondary adaptation like the greyhound’s tail?2 I looked into Murphy & find that as you say the ideas I sent you about conscious & non-conscious intelligence are his, or whoever originated them.3 That idea I think I shall hold to, but I am inclined to think that I shall modify other views that I expressed—
I was talking to Capt Burton the other day.4 He thinks as I do that negroes & white men have pretty much the same ideas respecting beauty.
I am looking forward to your new edition.5 By the way as to expression the shooting out of the tongue is curious. I have seen it in negroes as with us to express wonder in a comical way. The open mouth in horror I have seen also in Africa; & in England represented on the stage
Yours very truly | Winwood Reade
Do not trouble to reply to this. But if I can be of any service in looking for a reference as the enclosed pray make use of me. I am an habitué of libraries It is therefore no trouble
[Enclosure]
“The immense height of the giraffe gives him a peculiar advantage as he can command an extraordinary range of vision & thereby be warned against the approach of his two great enemies, man & the lion. No animal is more difficult to stalk than the giraffe &c.”
Baker’s Albert Nyanza i. 341. In his Nile Tributaries p 189 et seq. are passages to the same effect.6 The above is the clearest statement. He also mentions their posting sentries &c. & their avoiding high forests.7
CD annotations
Footnotes
Bibliography
Baker, Samuel White. 1867. The Nile tributaries of Abyssinia, and the sword hunters of the Hamran arabs. London: Macmillan.
Murphy, Joseph John. 1869. Habit and intelligence in their connexion with the laws of matter and force: a series of scientific essays. 2 vols. London: Macmillan and Co.
ODNB: Oxford dictionary of national biography: from the earliest times to the year 2000. (Revised edition.) Edited by H. C. G. Matthew and Brian Harrison. 60 vols. and index. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 2004.
Origin 6th ed.: The origin of species by means of natural selection, or the preservation of favoured races in the struggle for life. 6th edition, with additions and corrections. By Charles Darwin. London: John Murray. 1872.
Variation: The variation of animals and plants under domestication. By Charles Darwin. 2 vols. London: John Murray. 1868.
Summary
Sees his ideas on conscious and non-conscious intelligence are already in Murphy [J. J. Murphy, Habit and intelligence (1869)].
Encloses an extract from S. W. Baker’s The Albert N’yanza [1866] on the behaviour of the giraffe [See Origin, 6th ed., p. 178], and some references to Baker’s Nile tributaries [1867].
Letter details
- Letter no.
- DCP-LETT-7968
- From
- William Winwood Reade
- To
- Charles Robert Darwin
- Sent from
- Kensington
- Source of text
- DAR 69: A49; DAR 176: 51
- Physical description
- ALS 3pp; encl 1p †
Please cite as
Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 7968,” accessed on 28 March 2024, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-7968.xml
Also published in The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, vol. 19