From A. L. Adams 29 August [1878]1
18 Clarendon Gardens | Maida Vale W | London
29 August
My dear Sir
Accept my best thanks for your kind letter of the 27th. Inst. referring to my qualifications for the vacant chair in Natural History in Queens College Cork2
I dont know if the condition I am about to refer to is known to you but it appears to me worth noting: Just lately when engaged in working up the comparative anatomy of antlered deer especially Cervus megaceros—a monograph on which species I am now engaged— it was brought to my notice by Mr. Davies of the British Museum that the left Antler is very generally larger than the right, either with reference to the size of the snags or the horn generally & this I find very general indeed unexceptional as far as the above species is concerned, by the examination of several hundred heads.3 I [believe] it is the case very generally in the Red Deer Fallow Deer & the Eastern Rusæ.4 On the left side the protection of the heart would be a consideration & the mode of attack. I have seen the Red Deer fighting in Cashmere5 & noticed that the charge was not as in the goats & sheep downwards or directly forwards but directed towards the flanks. At all events the point is noteworthy
Wishing you many years of health & happiness to labour in the field you have so nobly worn| I remain your’s | very faithfully | A Leith Adams
C. Darwin Esq LLD | &c &c
Footnotes
Bibliography
Columbia gazetteer of the world: The Columbia gazetteer of the world. Edited by Saul B. Cohen. 3 vols. New York: Columbia University Press. 1998.
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.
Summary
Thanks for letter on ALA’s qualifications for vacant chair of natural history.
Reports observations on deer which have larger left antlers than right, possibly for protection of heart.
Letter details
- Letter no.
- DCP-LETT-11677
- From
- Andrew Leith Adams
- To
- Charles Robert Darwin
- Sent from
- Maida Vale
- Source of text
- DAR 159: 8
- Physical description
- ALS 3pp
Please cite as
Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 11677,” accessed on 25 April 2024, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-11677.xml