4o6 GROWTH OF THE 'ORIGIN.' [1855. 



I hope I have not wearied you, but I thought you would 

 like to hear about this book, which strikes me as excellent in 

 its facts, and the author a most nice and modest man. 



Most truly yours, 



C. Darwin. 



C. Da7"win to IV. D. Fox. 



Down, March 19th [1855]. 



My dear Fox, — How long it is since we have had any 

 communication, and I really want to hear how the world goes 

 with you ; but my immediate object is to ask you to observe 

 a point for me, and as I know now you are a very busy man 

 with too much to do, I shall have a good chance of your 

 doing what I want, as it would be hopeless to ask a quite 

 idle man. As you have a Noah's Ark, I do not doubt that 

 you have pigeons. (How I wish by any chance they were 

 fantails !) Now what I want to know is, at what age nestling 

 pigeons have their tail feathers sufficiently developed to be 

 counted. I do not think I ever saw a young pigeon. I am 

 hard at work at my notes collecting and comparing them, in 

 order in some two or three years to write a book with all the 

 facts and arguments, which I can collect, for and versus the 

 immutability of species. I want to get the young of our 

 domestic breeds, to see how young, and to what degree the 

 differences appear. I must either breed myself (which is no 

 amusement but a horrid bore to me) the pigeons or buy their 

 young ; and before I go to a seller, whom I have heard of 

 from Yarrell, I am really anxious to know something about 

 their development, not to expose my excessive ignorance, 

 and therefore be excessively liable to be cheated and gulled. 

 With respect to the one point of the tail feathers, it is of course 

 in relation to the wonderful development of tail feathers in 

 the adult fantail. If you had any breed of poultry pure, I 

 wo*uld beg a chicken with exact age stated, about a week or 

 fortnight old ! to be sent in a box by post, if you could have 

 the heart to kill one ; and secondly, would let me pay post- 



