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From R. F. Albrecht   13 October 1871

Berlin,

13th. of Octbr. 71.

Dear Sir

I believe to miss in all your works one of the most interesting facts and causes of the variation of animals under domestication as well as in liberty. I mean the well known fact of the “frightening” of an pregnant animal.1 I am thinking of this in reading the old german book of Georg Simon Winter von Adlers-Flügel Neuen & vermehrten Tractat von der Stuterey oder Fohlenzucht, Nürnberg 1687.2 This book (printed in four languages) contains the description of a horse born with 8 feet. The article is very interesting and I quote it in French, as the “Old German” text will be hardly understood by you.

“C’est un cheval à huit pieds dont les quatres plus petits pendoient par dedans au côte des jambes, l’on le menoit l’an de grace 1663 par diverses villes et lieux de l’Alemagne, Comme m’a dit une personne digne de foy qui me montra même son portrait à Cologne. Il était d’un poil brun-clair avec une balzane grande et large sur le front et un autre des deux bras. C’estoit une jument.

Les opinions sont aussi fort differentes comment et par quelle vertu occulte ces monstres s’engendrent. Quelques uns disent, que cela vient de l’imagination un point de la conception, sur tout quand la cavale a venu des choses aux quelles le monstre rassemble. L’experience est témoin de cette vérité, car si l’en met 15 jours devant l’êtallonnement une peinture aux jeux de la cavale, jusqu’a à ce quelle soit devenue ne soit par aené à elle, sans être habille d’une couverture de couleurs semblables à la peinture, auquel temps il luy faut aussi faire voir le tableau, afinque les figures et couleurs soyent bien imprimees à la Fantasie durant l’acte d’amour. Et cette presentation de la peinture doit être continuée encore 15 jours jusqu’à l’autre acte. Huit moins après on la doit encore souvent faire voir à la cavale, jusqu’à à son poulainement. Alors vous verrez un poulain, dont le poil aura grand rapport aux couleurs du tableau.3

I beg to remain dear | Sir truly your | R. F. Albrecht

(Adress: | care of Messrs. Asher & Co, | 11. Unter den Linden, Berlin).

CD annotations

Verso of last page: ‘2264’ blue crayon; ‘— (Chapt. 22.)’ pencil

Footnotes

1
For more on popular belief in the effect of maternal imagination, see Huet 1993, Wilson 1993, and Todd 1995; for the scientific debate on the significance of monsters in an evolutionary context, see Richards 1994.
2
Winter von Adlersflügel 1687: New and improved treatise on the stud and horse-breeding.
3
Translation: This is a horse with eight hooves, of which the four smallest hung on the inside of the legs, that was taken in the year of grace 1663 through various cities and parts of Germany, as a trustworthy person, who even showed me its portrait at Cologne, told me. It had a light-brown coat with a tall and wide mark on its face and another on the two arms. It was a mare. Opinions are very different on how and by what occult quality these monsters are produced. Some say, that it results from the imagination at the moment of conception, especially when the mare has seen things which the monster resembles. Experiment is witness to this truth, since if one puts a painting before the eyes of the mare for a fortnight before impregnation, up to the point where she becomes [very amorous: the stallion, the real one, on which the experiment is made] should not be brought to her, unless he is clothed in a covering of colours like those in the painting, at which time it is also necessary for him to see the picture, so that the figures and colours are well impressed on the Fantasy during the act of love. And this presentation of the painting ought to be continued again a fortnight before the other act. For eight months afterwards one ought to again often let it be shown to the mare, up to her foaling. Thus you would see a foal, whose coat would have strong reflection of the colours of the picture. There is an omission in Albrecht’s transcription (‘bien amoreuse: L’étalon soit le vray ou celuy d’êpreuve’) that has been restored in square brackets in the translation. There are other minor errors in Albrecht’s transcription. The quotation is from pages 135 and 137. The ‘arms’ or ‘upper arms’ of a horse are high on the forelegs, towards the shoulder.

Bibliography

Huet, Marie-Hélène. 1993. Monstrous imagination. Cambridge, Mass., and London: Harvard University Press.

Richards, Evelleen. 1994. A political anatomy of monsters, hopeful and otherwise. Teratogeny, transcendentalism, and evolutionary theorizing. Isis 85: 377–411.

Todd, Dennis. 1995. Imagining monsters. Miscreations of the self in eighteenth-century England. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press.

Wilson, Dudley. 1993. Signs and portents. Monstrous births from the Middle Ages to the Enlightenment. London and New York: Routledge.

Winter von Adlersflügel, Georg Simon. 1687. Neuer und vermehrter Tractat von Stuterey oder Fohlenzucht. Nürnberg: Endler.

Summary

CD has omitted in all his works one of the most interesting causes of variation, domestic or wild – i.e., frightening of a pregnant animal; quotes case of eight-footed horse from a French translation of G. S. W. von Adler.

Letter details

Letter no.
DCP-LETT-8006
From
R. F. Albrecht
To
Charles Robert Darwin
Sent from
Berlin
Source of text
DAR 159: 34
Physical description
ALS 3pp

Please cite as

Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 8006,” accessed on 19 April 2024, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-8006.xml

Also published in The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, vol. 19

letter

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