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From G. J. Romanes   [6 or 13 or 20] March 18811

18 Cornwall Terrace, Regent’s Park, N.W.:

Sunday, March 1881.

I have got a lot of cats waiting for me at different houses round Wimbledon Common, and some day next week shall surprise our coachman by making a round of calls upon the cats, drive them several miles into the country, and then let them out of their respective bags. If any return, I shall try them again in other directions before finally trying the rotation experiment.2

I am also getting the experiment on flashing light agoing. The first apparatus did not answer, so now I have invested in a large eight-day clock, the pendulum of which I intend to make do the flashing.3

Footnotes

1
The range of days is established by the relationship between this letter and the letter from G. J. Romanes, 24 March 1881. These were the three Sundays in March before 24 March 1881.
2
CD had been informed by Jean-Henri Fabre that it was common practice where he lived to turn a cat round in a bag when taking it elsewhere in order to prevent it from returning home. CD may also have told Romanes about the Belgian practice of ‘cat racing’; cats were taken to distant parts of the city and the owner of the first one to find its way home won a prize (see Correspondence vol 28, letter to J.-H. Fabre, 20 February 1880 and nn. 2 and 4).
3
Romanes had planned to investigate whether plant tissue was affected by brief flashes of light (Correspondence vol. 28, letter from G. J. Romanes, 10 December 1880). He had been granted permission to use equipment at the Royal Institution of Great Britain by the superintendent, John Tyndall (Correspondence vol. 28, letter from G. J. Romanes, 17 December 1880).

Summary

Intends experiment to see if cats released in country can find their way back.

Letter details

Letter no.
DCP-LETT-13069
From
George John Romanes
To
Charles Robert Darwin
Sent from
London, Cornwall Terrace, 18
Source of text
E. D. Romanes 1896, p. 107

Please cite as

Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 13069,” accessed on 8 May 2024, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-13069.xml

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