My dear Darwin

You know of course how the inaccuracy of some little trifling incidental statement in a book reflects its authority in the minds of some people who never take the trouble to compare the crooked grain of sand with the symmetrical mountain.

I heard your Origin of Species laughed at the other day because you assume that the young bird pecks its way out of the shell with its own beak.—¹ Certainly this seems to me an impossibility looking at the way in w^h. the young bird is coiled up in the shell with its beak almost under its wing (see for instance the plate in Rymer Jones Outlines An: Kingd)²

—Others present supposed that the old bird broke the egg for the young one to come out, & my wife tells me that that was the way all the old henwives told her it was done.—

Your critic however said that on applying to an old woman on the point she laughed at him and said “why Lord bless you, Sir, the young un’ grows too big for the shell & busts it” & that does seem to me the most reasonable supposition—

Your statement at p 87 w^d. therefore either need revision or the facts on which it is based verification.—³

Believe me | Very truly yours | J. Beete Jukes