From William Aitchison to George Cupples 16 June 1869
Linhope
16th June | 1869
Sir
I regret my absence from here should have left yours of the 12th so long without an answer.—1
I am no stranger to Mr Darwin’s scientific fame & shall be glad to extend to him, through you, any information in my power about sheep— We sheep Farmers always count the number of our Lambs someway about the 20th or 25th May when we castrate the Tup Lambs, but I suspect none of us know the exact proportional deaths of the sexes previous to that period, but there is no doubt the males are most liable to die after birth—2 notwithstanding I have always been of opinion that the balance upon the whole is in numbers with the female sex—
In evidence of this I shall give you a statement of the number of Lambs I had on one of my largest Farms during the last two years at the time of castration about the 20th May—3
1867 | Ewe Lambs | — — | 57.14 |
Tup Lambs | — — | 55.17 | |
1868 | Ewe Lambs | — — | 62.17 |
Tup Lambs | — — | 52. 1 | |
1869 | Ewe Lambs | — — | 57.9 |
Tup Lambs | — — | 49.13 |
You are at perfect liberty to further communicate with me about these matters—
I am Sir | Your obdt. Servt. | Wm Aitchison
CD annotations
Footnotes
Bibliography
Descent: The descent of man, and selection in relation to sex. By Charles Darwin. 2 vols. London: John Murray. 1871.
Summary
Statistics on proportion of sexes in lambs.
Letter details
- Letter no.
- DCP-LETT-6784
- From
- William Aitchison
- To
- George Cupples
- Sent from
- Linhope
- Source of text
- DAR 86: A54–5
- Physical description
- ALS 4pp † (by CD)
Please cite as
Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 6784,” accessed on 19 May 2024, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-6784.xml
Also published in The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, vol. 17