40 
Walter Frank Raphael Weldon. 1860—1906. 
this region, with the bike, and learn to know and love the dear Dog !* Also explain to me how 
without thrashing to teach that same animal that lambs are not made to be eaten by puppies. 
There must be a way. I have taught him to walk at heel past the most tempting of other dogs, 
and even past chickens, and I have not yet beaten him at all. Cows and sheep will I suppose 
make one or two beatings necessary ? " [Oxford, 7/2/02.] 
And a little later comes a letter which shall be cited because it may induce 
another to take up a form of biometric work, which must some day be pushed to 
a successful issue ; in the fifteen years of letters there are many problems like this 
of Draba verna, which are discussed month after month with specimens, drawings, 
and tables, some merely schemed, but in surprising detail, others reaching the 
experimental stage, some in part solved, others but records of failure, one and all 
suggestive. 
" Draha verna, or its earliest race is in full flower. I have four model types from a certain 
wall. 
Now can you and Mrs Pearson give us the week end, so that your eyes may see the glory of 
this plant ? 
If you can turn up on Friday (I finish lecturing at 6) we can go for a tramp on Saturday, and 
see Draba at home on its walls. A gentle 7 or 8 miles all told, in a decently pretty country, 
with a variable plant in the middle and a really Perfect Dog all the way makes a very good 
combination ; — only bring some knickerbockers, because Oxford Clay goes over one's ankles 
in places just now. 
We can bring home our spoil, and discuss the very difficult question of descriptive units. 
I think it a good and important thing to try. All the problems of treating mixed races 
come in ; and above all I am curious to see what comes of statistical treatment applied to 
characters which have been chosen by " naturalists." They all say we choose anything which is 
easy to measure, and neglect the real points of " biological " importance ; and there is a little 
truth in this reproach. 
For Draba we want units of " habit," of shape and colour of leaves, of hairiness, of shape and 
colour of petals, sepals and fruit. We want to treat leaves which are very distinctly differen- 
tiated according to their relative time of appearance, and I think having tabulated all 
these characters, we want to break up the plants on a wall which you shall see on Saturday 
into about four races. 
Do come if you possibly can. I saw one plant yesterday with all its seed capsules ripe and 
open ; so that the first lot of little races will very soon be out of flower. 
* The great Borzoi Sandro, henceforward to be a marked feature of the Weldon household, at home 
and away from home. Sandro pursuing sheep over the Yorkshire moors, Sandro pursuing game in the 
Buckinghamshire beechwoods, Weldon pursuing Sandro with every tone of affectionate persuasion, on 
the track the stacked cycles and the co-editor pursuing the deserted biometric problems in solitude, 
Weldon returning with the unchastised dog, after any interval of from 10 to 40 minutes, the chase being 
fully completed, the apologies for the Borzoi, his sustentation on chocolate and the human need for 
cigarettes, the return to the cycles, to the experiment that was to be crucial, to the colour and the 
sunset, these are all memories, the like of which others will have shared, which helped to form the 
atmosphere about the man. Sandro acliieved his purpose, he kept his master out in the air — such wolf 
hounds can follow a cycle for miles — and to exercise him was held up as a moral duty. But his limited 
intelligence led to his own disablement and he had to become a partaker only in biometric " at homes." 
For two years, however, he was a great feature of our joint expeditions. 
