18701882] REGENERATION 363 



To Lawson Tait. Letter 2 74 



March 25th, 1876. 



The reference is to the theory put forward in the first edition of 

 Variation of Animals and Plants, II., p. 15, that the asserted tendency 

 to regeneration after the amputation of supernumerary digits in man is a 

 return to the recuperative powers characteristic of a " lowly organised 

 progenitor provided with more than five digits." Darwin's recantation is 

 at Vol. I., p. 459 of the second edition. 



Since reading your first article, 1 Dr. Riidinger has written 

 to me and sent me an essay, in which he gives the results of 

 the most extensive inquiries from all eminent surgeons in 

 Germany, and all are unanimous about non-growth of extra 

 digits after amputation. They explain some apparent cases, 

 as Paget did to me. By the way, I struck out of my second 

 edition a quotation from Sir J. Simpson about re-growth in 

 the womb, as Paget demurred, and as I could not say how a 

 rudiment of a limb due to any cause could be distinguished 

 from an imperfect re-growth. Two or three days ago I had 

 another letter from Germany from a good naturalist, Dr. 

 Kollmann, 2 saying he was sorry that I had given up atavism 

 and extra digits, and telling me of new and good evidence of 

 rudiments of a rudimentary sixth digit in Batrachians (which 

 I had myself seen, but given up owing to Gegenbaur's views) ; 

 but, with re-growth failing me, I could not uphold my old 

 notion. 



To G. J. Romanes. 3 Letter 275 



H. Wedgwood, Esq., Hopedene, Dorking, 



May 2gth [1876]. 



As you are interested in pangenesis, and will some day, 

 I hope, convert an " airy nothing J: into a substantial theory, 



1 Lawson Tait wrote two notices on " The Variation of Animals and 

 Plants under Domestication" in the Spectator of March 4th, 1876, p. 312, 

 and March 25th, p. 406. 



2 Dr. Kollmann was Secretary of the Anthropologische Gesellschaft 

 of Munich, in which Society took place the discussion referred to in 

 Variation of Animals and Plants, I., 459, as originating Darwin's doubts 

 on the whole question. The fresh evidence adduced by Kollmann as 

 to the normal occurrence of a rudimentary sixth digit in Batrachians is 

 Borus' paper, " Die sechste Zehe derAnuren" in Morpholog. Jahrbuch, 

 Bd. I., p. 435. On this subject see Letter 178. 



3 Mr. Romanes' reply to this letter is printed in his Life and Letters, 

 p. 93, where by an oversight it is dated 1 880-81. 



