Collection of four letters signed by Charles Darwin, including one ALS and three LSs (the body written by his wife Emma), totaling thirteen pages, February 2, February 24, April 18, and June 1, 1869, all to amateur botanist William Chester Tait. This fascinating series of letters reflects Charles Darwin’s wide-ranging scientific research, his indefatigable curiosity, and his encouragement of a young naturalist. In overall fine condition.
In January 1869 Darwin received a letter from William Chester Tait, a British amateur botanist living in Portugal. Tait wrote glowingly to Darwin about his books, especially On the Origin of Species (1859) and his recently published Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication (1868). The young Tait then shared his observations on tailless dogs in Portugal. He observed that the tails of pointers are often docked and wonders if this might account for the occasional birth of tailless dogs, relating to the theory of pangenesis advanced in Darwin’s latest book.
This inquiry launched a yearlong correspondence. This collection of four letters makes up one-half of Darwin’s side of the correspondence. In Darwin’s initial letter of February 2, he replies to Tait’s inquiry writing, “With respect to the tailless dogs, there would be I fear much difficulty in determining how far the unknown causes, which occasionally lead in other countries dogs to be born without tails, have acted more energetically in Lisbon; & how far the result has followed from the cutting off of the tail; but if you could render your case highly probable it would be very interesting.”
Darwin then turns to a remarkable carnivorous plant native to Portugal, Drosophyllum Lusitanicum, also known as the dewy pine. The plant attracts insects and becomes encrusted with and absorbs their corpses. Darwin had asked J. D. Hooker and others to obtain the plant for him but to no avail. He asks Tait “to send me a living young plant of the rare Drosophyllum Lusitanicum, which grows in sandy places in Portugal, I have long wished to try a series of experiments on this plant.”
Darwin concludes his letter with the poignant observation, “With your taste for natural history, you must feel very isolated, and I can fully sympathize with you.” After the voyage of the Beagle, Darwin spent most of his scientific life at home, gathering data from personal observation there and through his vast network of correspondents.
Tait went to great lengths to obtain the rare carnivorous plant. In Darwin’s next letter, dated February 24, 1869, he observes, “Your kindnessis extraordinarily great about the Drosophyllum” and sends detailed instructions for shipment.” Preparing for the plants’ arrival, he asks in a postscript, “If you find the Dros. I should much wish to know whether it grows in sandy, peaty or clay soil—whether damp or dry—whether sunny or shady.—“
He then returns to the case of the tailless dogs, suggesting, “I would suggest that you should keep a list of the cases, observing whether the dogs in the several cases are known not to be related; for the number of cases alone would be evidence of the intervention of some new cause.”
Tait’s fascinating with variation under domestication and inherited traits inspires Darwin to continue, “Did I mention in myformerletter that I am very anxious to learn about therateofdevelopmentof thehornsin breeds of sheep in which theRamsalone arehorned(vizmerinos) and in common breedsin which bothsexesare horned, - especially if inhabiting the same country & fed in nearly the same manner. What ought to be observed, is,whetherthehorns are sensibly larger or smaller, at one or at two or at 3 months age, in the one breed than in the other. I hear from Saxony that inmerino rams the horns can just be felt at birth. I should much like to hear your facts on the elimination under nature of disadvantageous variations.”
In the next letter in the collection, dated April 18, Darwin notes that he is not well due to a fall from his horse. He tells Tait that the “the plants are going on very well but I have not been to go for a week to the greenhouse.” He then notes that he has had hisbook on orchids and his paper on climbing plants sent to Tait.
In the final letter Darwin thanks Tait for new specimens and extends an invitation for Tait to visit: “If you stay some little time in England and would feel inclined to come to dinner & sleep here I should be much pleased to thank you in person for all your kindness; but at present I feel so far from well & having lately had so many visitors, that I am sure the excitement of more conversation would quite knock me up.”
Tait’s success in finding the rare carnivorous plants inspired Darwin to press forward with his own research in this obscure corner of botany, culminating in Insectivorous Plants (1875). The naturalist described his experiments with Tait’s specimens in that book, crediting Tait by name.
This fine series of letters reflects all of the characteristics that made Darwin great: his imagination and openness to new ideas, his painstaking observation and experimentation, his generosity in sharing findings and ideas with others, and his cultivation of a spirit of shared scientific enterprise.
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