RECORD: Darwin, C. R. 1850.04. Sulivan says in the spring of 1849. CUL-DAR46.1.26. Edited by John van Wyhe (Darwin Online, http://darwin-online.org.uk/)

REVISION HISTORY: Transcribed by Christine Chua and edited by John van Wyhe 8.2022. RN1

NOTE: See record in the Darwin Online manuscript catalogue, enter its Identifier here. Reproduced with permission of the Syndics of Cambridge University Library and William Huxley Darwin. The volume CUL-DAR46.1 contains Notes for Natural selection chap. 5 'Struggle for existence'.


[26]

(Q) Ap. 1850. Falkland Isd

Sulivan says in the Spring of 1849, numbers of the wild Cattle died being so weak & getting into bogs — winter unusually severe & from disease with hair falling off — S. reported same deaths occurred 12 or 14 years before

It is a general opinion that the white cattle are the finest— Wild Horses stood the winter well.—

(Q) Chapt I

Cattle/Correlation

8 Struggle for Existence

[Natural selection, p. 181: "But to return to the cattle, further south in the Falkland Islands, there are no droughts, or injurious flies, or ticks or bats, & the cattle are magnificent animals & have multiplied greatly; but, as I am informed by Capt. Sulivan,4 who has kept cattle in these islands, every few years a hard winter like the 1849 destroys numbers, & even those that survive in the following spring are so much weakened that many die of diseases & get lost in the bogs.—The Horses there do not suffer so much from the snow, as their instinct teaches them to scrape the ground with their hoofs; but oddly enough they have multiplied/21/far less than the cattle, & here were left to eastern end of the island; though the western is the more fertile:5 the Gauchos can account for this only from the stallions constantly roaming from place to place & compelling by kicks & bites the mares to desert their young: Capt. Sulivan can so far corroborate this statement that he has several times found young foals dead, whereas he has never found a dead calf.6
4 [Bartholomew James Sulivan, admiral and hydrographer was one of Darwin's shipmates on the 'Beagle'. See ULC vol. 46.1 fols. 17‐18 of second numbering, for Darwin's notes, dated March, 1856, on Sulivan's information.]
5 Journal of Researches p. 191.
6 [Sulivan MS. letters to Darwin. C.D. MSS. vol. 46.1 fols. 73 v‐74, (undated portion of letter) and fol. 81 v from letter dated Jan. 13, 1844.]"]

 


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