to Mr. Huxley's request for information about breeding, hybridisation, etc.
It is of interest as giving a vivid retrospect of the writer's experience
on the subject.]


CHARLES DARWIN TO T.H. HUXLEY.
Ilkley, Yorks, November 27 [1859].

My dear Huxley,

Gartner grand, Kolreuter grand, but papers scattered through many volumes
and very lengthy. I had to make an abstract of the whole. Herbert's
volume on Amaryllidaceae very good, and two excellent papers in the
'Horticultural Journal.' For animals, no resume to be trusted at all;
facts are to be collected from all original sources. (This caution is
exemplified in the following extract from an earlier letter to Professor
Huxley:--"The inaccuracy of the blessed gang (of which I am one) of
compilers passes all bounds. MONSTERS have frequently been described as
hybrids without a tittle of evidence. I must give one other case to show
how we jolly fellows work. A Belgian Baron (I forget his name at this
moment) crossed two distinct geese and got SEVEN hybrids, which he proved
subsequently to be quite sterile; well, compiler the first, Chevreul, says
that the hybrids were propagated for SEVEN generations inter se. Compiler
second (Morton) mistakes the French name, and gives Latin names for two
more distinct geese, and says CHEVREUL himself propagated them inter se for
seven generations; and the latter statement is copied from book to book.")
I fear my MS. for the bigger book (twice or thrice as long as in present
book), with all references, would be illegible, but it would save you
infinite labour; of course I would gladly lend it, but I have no copy, so
care would have to be taken of it. But my accursed handwriting would be