From Edward Blyth [8 January 1858]1
will cover she-Donkeys readily; but not so always the converse. The famous Ld Clive,2 you will remember, had a Zebra mare which rejected the advances of a Jack-ass; when his ldship hit upon the notable expedient of painting the latter with Zebra-stripes, upon which the scruples of the lady Zebra were overcome! Well, suppose this Zebrified Jackass (or were it even otherwise harlequinized) had been put to a few Jenny Asses. Would the foals resulting from such intercourse exhibit an unusual amount of striping? The experiment might be tried also with mares, or even with bitches, Swine, &c. An affirmative result would certainly be most interesting, and be applicable too in procuring new varieties of colouring in various animals.—
Among a lot of Jungle-fowls I saw yesterday was a cock without the white cheek-lappet; as I think always with those from the eastern side of the Bay of Bengal; but this was a Bengal specimen. I bought this morning a cock & hen of the frizzled race of fowls. In Dr. Livingstone’s work, you will find that he met with such in Africa, and fancied them to be the result of an effort of nature to adapt themselves to a hot climate!3 As if the fowl was not aboriginally an inhabitant of torrid climes? I should like you to see my article on ‘British Birds in India’ in the ‘Calcutta Review’:4 that on Indian Pigeons5 I will send you by Sir W. Wiseman.6 It may contain one or two suggestions for you to follow out— The former article was published some two or three Nos. back in our Calcutta Quarterly; and of course you will be able to see it at the India-house,7 & probably elsewhere. There is much in it which I know would interest you.
As I write, a royal salute is firing in honour of the arrival of the glorious garrison of Lucknow, i.e. the wounded officers, & the ladies and children.8 How amazingly the force of character of our countrymen & countrywomen has been evinced in the course of this terrible struggle! The wonderful superiority of the European to the Asiatic, from the days of Xenophon and Alexander even unto now! Against such overwhelming odds, nobody here ever conceived the possibility of the insurrection proving successful,—this grand struggle of barbarism against a higher civilization ennobled by the application of all the sciences.
Ever Sincerely Yours, E Blyth—
CD annotations
Footnotes
Bibliography
Blyth, Edward. 1857b. Description of a new Indian pigeon, akin to the ‘stock dove’ of Europe; with notices of other Columbinæ. Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal 26: 217–26.
Correspondence: The correspondence of Charles Darwin. Edited by Frederick Burkhardt et al. 29 vols to date. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1985–.
Livingstone, David. 1857. Missionary travels and researches in South Africa; including a sketch of sixteen years’ residence in the interior of Africa, and a journey from the Cape of Good Hope to Loanda on the west coast; thence across the Continent, down the river Zambesi, to the Eastern Ocean. London: John Murray.
Natural selection: Charles Darwin’s Natural selection: being the second part of his big species book written from 1856 to 1858. Edited by R. C. Stauffer. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1975.
Summary
Zebra-striped asses.
Markings of a Bengal jungle cock.
Refers to some of his own articles on birds in India.
Reports the arrival of the "glorious garrison of Lucknow". The "wonderful superiority of the European to the Asiatic" made the success of the insurrection inconceivable.
Letter details
- Letter no.
- DCP-LETT-2200
- From
- Edward Blyth
- To
- Charles Robert Darwin
- Sent from
- Calcutta
- Source of text
- DAR 98: A144–5
- Physical description
- ALS 4pp inc †
Please cite as
Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 2200,” accessed on 25 April 2024, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-2200.xml
Also published in The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, vol. 7
