From Samuel Newington 10 December 1875
Ticehurst.
10th Decr 1875
Dear Sir.
I am about to bother you again. I beg to enclose another letter from Mr Parish respecting the hybrid.1 You will see that there were 3 broods of these distorted duck-fowls. & that the cock trod the ducks, not one duck only. I only wish he had preserved the one like the cock. My hybrid I believe has its brain distorted. at all events its mind is, it has very queer habits. I suppose you are aware that there have been several cases of half dogs & half human beings. I have heard of three cases. these seem more extraordinary ie, a cross between a quadruped & biped. The grafted vines referred to in a former letter, 1st, Maddresfield on B Hamburgh, 2nd Maddresfield on Muscadine, in each case the berries on the Maddresfield were quite round.2 On the removal of the Muscadine from the Maddresfield the berries continued round for the first year, this year, ie the second after removal, the berries on the Maddresfield have been oval.
Can you account for the following. I took out the yolk of an egg & kept it several days on the hob close to the fire until it became so dry I was able to pulverize it. I placed it away in a closed vessel, but the air I presume must have entered. in a year’s time. when I was about to use the powder I found it full of small acarites. not the same as those of cheese.3 I kept them until they devoured all the yolk. when they died.
About 7 years since I planted an orange pip in a green-house, some distance from any other house. it has grown about 4 feet in height. this year the leaves are covered with the orange scale.4 Can you account for this?
believe me | dear Sir | Yrs very truly | S Newington
Footnotes
Summary
Reports on various observations and experiments: a duck–fowl hybrid with queer habits,
three cases of man–dog hybrids,
his interarching vine experiments,
and orange scale.
Letter details
- Letter no.
- DCP-LETT-10294
- From
- Samuel Newington
- To
- Charles Robert Darwin
- Sent from
- Ticehurst
- Source of text
- DAR 172: 36
- Physical description
- ALS 4pp
Please cite as
Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 10294,” accessed on 19 April 2024, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-10294.xml
Also published in The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, vol. 23