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From Edward Blyth   7 April 1863

The High Beeches, | near Crawley, Sussex1

April 7/63—

My Dear Sir,

Here I am, quietly and comfortably ensconsed for some time to come, with an occasional run up to London,—quite close upon Tilgate forest, the chief scene of Mantell’s Researches;2 and I find that my juvenile kinsfolk are in possession of Iguanodon teeth, & a fine Crocodilian bone, which I take to belong to the Teleosaurus.3 I have had no time, however, as yet for researches of any kind, & my only trip has been to Brighton Downs yesterday with my friends to see the Volunteer Review. Fortunately I was accompanied all day by Capt Hans Busk, who was the originator of the Volunteer movement, but who only attended yesterday as a spectator.4 Of course it was much like other sham-fights, & there was a vast crowd of spectators— To me it is of course a treat to recognise all my old friends in the birds, plants, &c, & already I really sometimes feel as if I had never left England, almost.5

Bartlett told me that he would not trust your suggested experiments in other hands than his own, when he could find time to superintend them personally: otherwise they would be surely botched.6 He shewed me some very curious hybrids. The mixed breed of the Ruddy Shieldrake or common ‘Brahmini Goose’ of India (Casarca rutila) with the European & Asiatic Shieldrake (Tadorna vulpanser) prove to be so like the Australian Casarca that the two are barely, if at all, distinguishable! They are in adjacent compartments, & I could not tell the one from the other! And yet there is also an Australian true Tadorna, & likewise I believe a Casarca peculiar to New Zealand,—also one that I know of only from S. Burmá, my C. leucoptera— The curious fact remains that by crossing the Eur-asian Casarca rutila & Tadorna vulpanser, you produce the exact likeness of the Casarca proper to Australia! The way the Feruginous Pochard has also been bred back from the mixed progeny of a female Clangula vulgaris is also worthy of notice.7

Yours ever sincerely, | E. Blyth

Footnotes

1
High Beeches, Slaugham, Sussex, was the seat of Robert Loder (Post Office directory of the six home counties 1862). Loder’s relationship to Blyth has not been established.
2
Gideon Algernon Mantell was well known for the numerous fossils he had collected in Tilgate Forest, Sussex (Cleevely and Chapman 1992).
3
Iguanodon was a Cretaceous dinosaur from Tilgate Forest, first described by Mantell in 1825 (Mantell 1825); Teleosaurus was the name given by Etienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire (E. Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire 1825d) to the remains of a group of Jurassic crocodilian forms found in a limestone quarry in Normandy, France (see Buffetaut 1987, pp. 68–9, 80–3).
4
The Volunteer Force was raised in 1859 as part of a movement to train military volunteers for countering the perceived threat of invasion by the French (DNB, EB). Hans Busk was Loder’s brother-in-law (Burke’s peerage 1980).
5
Blyth had been appointed curator of the museum of the Asiatic Society of Bengal in 1841. He was forced to leave Calcutta for England at the end of 1862 as a consequence of ill health, arriving in March 1863 (see Blyth 1875, p. xii, and letter from Edward Blyth, 27 March 1863).
6
Abraham Dee Bartlett was superintendent of the Zoological Society’s gardens in Regent’s Park, London (Modern English biography). He conducted experiments and made observations for CD on rabbits, geese, peacocks and wild cats (see Variation 1: 109–11, 114–15, 288, 290; 2: 150; and Correspondence vols. 8, 9, and 10). See also Correspondence vol. 13, letter to [A. D. Bartlett], 24 August [1860–3].
7
CD discussed the chief domestic duck breeds, and their derivation from the common wild duck, in Variation 1: 277–87. Casarca rutila is a synonym of Tadorna ferruginea, the ruddy shelduck; Tadorna vulpanser is a synonym of T. tadorna, the common shelduck; Casarca leucoptera (white-headed shelduck) is a synonym of Asarcornis scutulata, the white-winged duck; Clangula vulgaris is a synonym of Bucephala clangula, the common goldeneye. CD’s interest in hybrid ducks had led him to keep some at Down House during the 1850s (see Correspondence vols. 5 and 6).

Bibliography

Blyth, Edward. 1875. Catalogue of mammals and birds of Burma. With a memoir [by A. Grote] and portrait of the author. Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal n.s. 43 (1874), pt 2, extra number (1875).

Buffetaut, Eric. 1987. A short history of vertebrate palaeontology. London: Croom Helm.

Burke’s peerage: A genealogical and heraldic dictionary of the peerage and baronetage of the United Kingdom. Burke’s peerage and baronetage. 1st– edition. London: Henry Colburn [and others]. 1826–.

Correspondence: The correspondence of Charles Darwin. Edited by Frederick Burkhardt et al. 29 vols to date. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1985–.

DNB: Dictionary of national biography. Edited by Leslie Stephen and Sidney Lee. 63 vols. and 2 supplements (6 vols.). London: Smith, Elder & Co. 1885–1912. Dictionary of national biography 1912–90. Edited by H. W. C. Davis et al. 9 vols. London: Oxford University Press. 1927–96.

EB: The Encyclopædia Britannica. A dictionary of arts, sciences, literature and general information. 11th edition. 29 vols. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1910–11.

Mantell, Gideon Algernon. 1825. Notice on the Iguanodon, a newly discovered fossil reptile, from the sandstone of Tilgate Forest, in Sussex. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London (1825): 179–86.

Modern English biography: Modern English biography, containing many thousand concise memoirs of persons who have died since the year 1850. By Frederick Boase. 3 vols. and supplement (3 vols.). Truro, Cornwall: the author. 1892–1921.

Post Office directory of the six home counties: Post Office directory of the six home counties, viz., Essex, Herts, Kent, Middlesex, Surrey and Sussex. London: W. Kelly & Co. 1845–78.

Variation: The variation of animals and plants under domestication. By Charles Darwin. 2 vols. London: John Murray. 1868.

Summary

Has seen some curious hybrid ducks and geese of Bartlett’s. Bartlett will do experiments suggested by CD when he has time.

Letter details

Letter no.
DCP-LETT-4078
From
Edward Blyth
To
Charles Robert Darwin
Sent from
Crawley
Source of text
DAR 160: 205
Physical description
ALS 4pp

Please cite as

Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 4078,” accessed on 20 April 2024, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-4078.xml

Also published in The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, vol. 11

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