To Lawson Tait [13–15 March 1875]1
Your view is new to me, and has only to be suggested for its probability to be recognised.2 I presume that of course you would thus account only in part for the retention of a tail and for its modification. Your view does not preclude the conjoint use of the tail for other service, as for gliding through the air when flattened, as in the squirrel, or as a signal to beasts of prey, in accordance with Mr. Betts’s ingenious suggestion in his Nicaraguan travels, with respect to the great bushy and conspicuously-coloured tail of the skunks.3 I wish we knew the use of the extraordinary tail of the yak, which inhabits such cold regions, whether it serves solely as a fly-flapper.4 If poor Dr. Falconer5 had been alive he could have told us.
Footnotes
Bibliography
Correspondence: The correspondence of Charles Darwin. Edited by Frederick Burkhardt et al. 29 vols to date. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1985–.
Descent 2d ed.: The descent of man, and selection in relation to sex. By Charles Darwin. 2d edition. London: John Murray. 1874.
Variation: The variation of animals and plants under domestication. By Charles Darwin. 2 vols. London: John Murray. 1868.
Summary
Thinks CD is right about the retention of a tail.
Letter details
- Letter no.
- DCP-LETT-9885F
- From
- Charles Robert Darwin
- To
- Robert Lawson (Lawson) Tait
- Source of text
- Birmingham Daily Post, 8 April 1875, p. 6
- Physical description
- inc
Please cite as
Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 9885F,” accessed on 21 May 2024, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-9885F.xml
Also published in The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, vol. 23