Dear Sir

I obtained your last 2 large vols as soon as published and being anxious to see their contents ran through them with a promise to myself to read them carefully when I had full Leisure¹   I at the time purposed to have written you on the following—

Half bred Persian Cats inter breeding

My Brother² brought a black pure bred femail Persian home with him from Bombay (having bought it there from a Persian.) in 1851— It used to roam & hunt over a very wide aria a propensity which this species seam to possess preeminently and became a nusiance & so was given away & it fell into the hands of an old bachelor Farmer who allowed it to roam & it soon proved with & had Kittens—all of which were not only black or at least like their mother a brown black and with really very good long haired coats— one of them was a Tom

My wife³ had obtained a femail kitten from Dorsetshire which I think from appearance must have been rather less than half bred between the common & the Persian Cats & had had kittens once to a pure bred white Persian and on the 2^nd. time of it wishing to breed I had her shut up and got the Black half bred Tom named above, the result of which was a a litter of 4 Kittens some black like the father & the femails Tortoiseshell

I have troubled you with these full particulars as they fully confirm your deductions that half bred Persian cats are fruitful one with another⁴

The Mother from Dorsetshire had her first litter to a pure bred white Persian Tom & had 2 Toms and she bred several times to these sons

Again Mr J Bulmar⁵ had a breed of half bred Persians and being a farmer lost the mother but had some of her progeny which however were much as common cats he says— He however kept only the descendants of his original femail half Persian & 14 years after he lost this one of these descendants produced a really fine half bred long wooled Persian cat— he cant tell me how many generations intervened between the old original & this throw back to the Persian—

I hope I have not burdened you with too long detail & beg to be Dear Sir | Yours faithfully | W A Wooler

C Darwin Esq | LLD

Bromley | Kent