birds must be as delicate and tedious an operation as the pairing of young
gentlemen and ladies. If I can convince myself that there are habitually
many unpaired birds, it will be a great aid to me in sexual selection,
about which I have lately had many troubles, and am therefore rejoiced to
hear in your last note that your faith keeps staunch. That is a curious
fact about the bullfinches all appearing to listen to the German singer
(441/1. See Letter 445, note.); and this leads me to ask how much faith
may I put in the statement that male birds will sing in rivalry until they
injure themselves. Yarrell formerly told me that they would sometimes even
sing themselves to death. I am sorry to hear that the painted bullfinch
turns out to be a female; though she has done us a good turn in exhibiting
her jealousy, of which I had no idea.

Thank you for telling me about the wildness of the hybrid canaries:
nothing has hardly ever surprised me more than the many cases of reversion
from crossing. Do you not think it a very curious subject? I have not
heard from Mr. Bartlett about the Gallinaceae, and I daresay I never shall.
He told me about the Tragopan, and he is positive that the blue wattle
becomes gorged with blood, and not air.

Returning to the first of the last three letters. It is most curious the
number of persons of the name of Jenner who have had a strong taste for
Natural History. It is a pity you cannot trace your connection with the
great Jenner, for a duke might be proud of his blood.

I heard lately from Professor Rolleston of the inherited effects of an
injury in the same eye. Is the scar on your son's leg on the same side and
on exactly the same spot where you were wounded? And did the wound
suppurate, or heal by the first intention? I cannot persuade myself of the
truth of the common belief of the influence of the mother's imagination on