CorrcHjiondcnre in'th Charft'jt Dnnriii IfiO 



iipjM'iir ill thii foreh«>a<l'. On going to the othnr littt-r, which I had never before got » proper 

 vi('w of, I found imothor young one with pn liliir nmrkH. (The iiialo pnrent wiui »he 



Hiiiiu- in lM)th ciUMW ) i hiive Hpent a most iin il niornin<; with new ap|iamtui trying to 



inject iiioi-c ('i>iiiplnt<-ly ; hut I have yet ho|>08 of succesH by nmicing Home alterations. 



1 will return to yoti Naudin and the 2 puinphletM by to-morrow't ImmjIc pOHt. Very many 

 thanks for tluMii and for all the reft'rencc!8. With great reluctance, I feel it would be too much for 

 me to undertake the ex|K«rimentH. I am too ignorant of gardening, and, living in I»ndon with 

 a suniiiier tour in proHpect, I don't see my way to a succeHsful insue; but I hojie to pnictiiie my 

 eye and get some experience this year which may bo of service next year or hereaft«T. I con- 

 gratulaU' you al)i>ut tlie t^uagga taint. Once more alxiut the rabbits, very many tliankn for 

 your liiiitH, I will try more grey bloo<l. Hartlett take.s great int^-rcHt and gives much care. 

 Muric's assistant li><>ks after the rabbits. Murie himself Icwks in now and then, 



Very sincerely, F. Galtom. 



Owing to tlui tiiilure of Darwin's jKirallel letU'is we have no knowledge 

 of what his hints were. Tlie nature of the proposed plant-rearing exj)eri- 

 inent8 is equally unknown to us, but the suggestion may have reniaine<l in 

 Galton's nund and have borne fruit in the sweet-pea experiments (jf a few 

 years later. The Quagga taint' has close bearing on the pre.sent subject, for 

 if a mother of breed A bore a child to a father of breed Ji, it seems likely that 

 the 'genunules' in the 'circulation' of the unlxnii child might pass into the 

 mother's circulation and possibly affect a child born later to a father of her 

 own breed A. The Quagga case, as indeed all instances up-to-date, of 

 so-called telegony can now \ye dismis.sed from consideration. They dejiend 

 essentially on (i) observation of variation within the pure breed not being 

 sufficiently wide, or (ii) the assertions of kennel-men and others endeavouring 

 to screen their responsibility for unplanned matings. 



It is clear from this fifth letter that Galton was still hoping against the 

 weight of accumulating facts for evidence that foreign 'genmiules' had been 

 transfu.sed with the blood. 



(6) 5, Bertie Teukack, Leaminctoi*. April s, 1870. 



My dkak Darwin, The white nose and vertical bjir is, I find, of no importance. Bartlett 

 was not accessible the day I found them out, but he has since told me they are common varieties, 

 and I hear the same from Mr Itoyds, the rabViit-fancier and judge of poultry shows, from whom 

 I Ixnight them, liefore leaving I^ondon last week I succetnlwl in infusing 2 (K-r cent, of the 

 rabbit's weight in alien bl(«K;l, before 1 had only achieved 1-2.') or l/,'<tltli jwrt which (on the 

 supposition of Huxley that bhxxl constitutes 1 10th of the whole weight of the IkkIv) is only 

 l/8th of the l>loo<l. In other words my transfusion, hitherto, has given only 1 great-grandj^rent 

 of mongrel IiKkmI to the otherwi.se pure silver greys, and this is a very small mutter. I do not 

 like to risk another operation on the other jugular of my rabbits till after the forthcoming 

 .3 litters, not till aft<'r I have had more success in the system of more abundant transfusion. 

 I can do nothing with the blood in its natural state, it coagulates .so quickly, so I detibrinise it. 

 If I cannot ever succeed in transfusing ivs much into the rabbits a.s is necessary to make a fair 

 experiment, I must go to larger animals, and try cross-circulation with big dogs. 



' Pencil note against this word: 'white star'; Ualtondoes nut use the now common word'Hare.' 

 ' See Animals and PlnnU tinder Doinfulu-nlion, Vol. I, pp. 403-4, 1st Edn. Vol. l, p. .*?45, 

 Va\. 1875. Darwin liclieved absolutely in telegony and attributes it to the "ditru,sion, retention 

 and action of the geiiiimiles includecl within the spermatozoa of the previous male."' AniiiuUt 

 and Plnnln, 1st Kdn. Vol. ii, p. .388. Darwin's words seem to indicate that mere coition as apart 

 from l)earing olFspring might piinluce telegony. The theory of telegony suggests that later 

 lK>rn offspring should \>c more like the father than earlier born, but 1 have found no trace of 

 this; see B. S. Proe. Vol. l.x, pp. 273-83, 1896. 



