The Wallace-Darwin Correspondence 



note of it on the other side, but if you would like more exact 

 particulars, with names and dates and a drawing of the bird, 

 I am sure Mr. O'Callaghan would send them to you. 



I hope to hear that you are better, and that your new 

 book is really to come out next winter. — Believe me yours 

 very faithfully, Alfred E. Wallace. 



Note. — Last spring Mr. O'Callaghan was told by a 

 country boy that he had seen a blackbird with a topknot; 

 on which Mr. O'C. very judiciously told him to watch it 

 and communicate further with him. After a time the boy 

 told him he had found a blackbird's nest, and had seen this 

 crested bird near it and believed he belonged to it. He con- 

 tinued watching the nest till the young were hatched. After 

 a time he told Mr. O'C. that two of the young birds seemed 

 as if they would have topknots. He was told to get one of 

 them as soon as it was fledged. However, he was too late, 

 and they left the nest, but luckily he found them near and 

 knocked one down with a stone, which Mr. O'C. had stuffed 

 and exhibited. It has a fine crest, something like that of a 

 Polish fowl, but larger in proportion to the bird, and very 

 regular and well formed. The male must have been almost 

 like the Umbrella bird in miniature, the crest is so large and 

 expanded. — A. R. W. 



Down, Bromley, Kent, S.E. September 22, 1865. 



Dear Wallace, — I am much obliged for your extract; I 

 never heard of such a case, though such a variation is per- 

 haps the most likely of any to occur in a state of nature and 

 be inherited, inasmuch as all domesticated birds present 

 races with a tuft or with reversed feathers on their heads. 

 I have sometimes thought that the progenitor of the whole 

 class must have been a crested animal. 



Do you make any progress with your Journal of travels ? 

 I am the more anxious that you should do so as I have lately 

 read with much interest some papers by you on the ouran- 



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