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



for one of the old birds, should one ever die a natural death. 

 Yarrell told me that Sabine had collected forty varieties of 

 the common duck ! . . . Well, to return to business ; nobody, 

 I am sure, could fix better for me than you the characteristic 

 age of little chickens ; with respect to skeletons, I have feared 

 it would be impossible to make them, but I suppose I shall 

 be able to measure limbs, &c, by feeling the joints. What 

 you say about old cocks just confirms what I thought, and I 

 will make my skeletons of old cocks. Should an old wild 

 turkey ever die, please remember me ; I do not care for a 

 baby turkey, nor for a mastiff. Very many thanks for your 

 offer. I have puppies of bull-dogs and greyhound in salt, 

 and I have had cart-horse and race-horse young colts care- 

 fully measured. Whether I shall do any good I doubt. I 

 am getting out of my depth. Most truly yours, 



C. Darwin. 



[An extract from a letter to Mr. Fox may find a place here, 

 though of a later date, viz. July, 1855 : 



" Many thanks for the seven days' old white Dorking, and 

 for the other promised ones. I am getting quite a ' chamber 

 of horrors,' I appreciate your kindness even more than be- 

 fore ; for I have done the black deed and murdered an angelic 

 little fantail and pouter at ten days old. I tried chloroform 

 and ether for the first, and though evidently a perfectly easy 

 death, it was prolonged ; and for the second I tried putting 

 lumps of cyanide of potassium in a very large damp bottle, 

 half an hour before putting in the pigeon, and the prussic 

 acid gas thus generated was very quickly fatal." 



A letter to Mr. Fox (May 23rd, 1855) gives the first men- 

 tion of my father's laborious piece of work on the breeding 

 of pigeons : 



" I write now to say that I have been looking at some of 

 our mongrel chickens, and I should say one week old would 



