i855.] FEATHERS— SKELETONS. 407 



age. . . Indeed, I should be very glad to have a nestling 

 common pigeon sent, for I mean to make skeletons, and have 

 already just begun comparing wild and tame ducks. And I 

 think the results rather curious,* for on weighing the several 

 bones very carefully, when perfectly cleaned the proportional 

 weights of the two have greatly varied, the foot of the tame 

 having largely increased. How I v/ish I could get a little 

 wild duck of a week old, but that I know is almost impos- 



sible. 



With respect to ourselves, I have not much to say ; we 

 have now a terribly noisy house with the whooping cough, 

 but otherwise are all well. Far the greatest fact about myself 

 is that I have at last quite done with the everlasting barnacles. 

 At the end of the year we had two of our little boys very ill 

 with fever and bronchitis, and all sorts of ailments. Partly 

 for amusement, and partly for change of air, we went to Lon- 

 don and took a house for a month, but it turned out a great 

 failure, for that dreadful frost just set in when we went, and 

 all our children got unwell, and E. and I had coughs and 

 colds and rheumatism nearly all the time. We had put down 

 first on our list of things to do, to go and see Mrs. Fox, but 

 literally after waiting some time to see whether the weather 

 would not improve, we had not a day when we both could 

 go out. 



I do hope before very long you will be able to manage 

 to pay us a visit. Time is slipping away, and we are getting 

 oldish. Do tell us about yourself and all your large family. 



I know you will help me if you can with information about 

 the young pigeons ; and anyhow do write before very long. 



My dear Fox, your sincere old friend, 



C. Darwin. 



* '* I have just been testing practically what disuse does in reducing 

 parts ; I have made skeleton of wild and tame duck (oh, the smell of well- 

 boiled, high duck ! !). and I find the tame-duck wing ought, according to 

 scale of wild prototype, to have its two wings 360 grains in weight, but it 

 has it only 317."— A letter to Sir J. Hooker, 1855. 



