In Pursuit of the Gene

VIVA PANGENESIS © 19
and Louisa traveled that summer, as they did every summer, and the rabbits
were entrusted to Darwin’s care. In the fall, he wrote to thank Darwin
for taking over the care of the rabbits and supervising the experiments and
promised to resume his cross-circulation experiments that October. But
October seems to have come and gone without word from Galton. By late
November he was quite abashed: “I am truly ashamed to have trespassed so
long on your kindness, in keeping the rabbits, but until now, owing to a variety
of causes ...Icouldnotaskforthem back.” 56
In December 1871 the cross-circulation experiments were resumed, and
rabbits were now routinely being shuttled back and forth from the Darwin
estate in Down to University College in London where the surgery was performed.
Darwin was now a full partner in the breeding program, urging
Galton to take rabbit progeny off his hands in order to make room for
more breeders. In February Galton made a half-hearted request for another
mating pair, and further expressed his appreciation to Darwin for his efforts,
which were now far outstripping his own. “I feel perfectly ashamed to
apply again to you in my recurring rabbit difficulty,” Galton wrote in May,
informing Darwin that he and his wife were off on their annual extended
European holiday and that he did not trust his servants to carry on the experiments
in his absence. “Is it possible that any of your men could take
charge of them and let them breed?” he inquired, offering to pay “even a
large sum—many times the cost of their maintenance—to any man who
would really attend to them.” 57 It was an elaborate display of Victorian graciousness,
for Galton clearly had no further interest in the rabbits and was
only continuing on with the experiments for Darwin’s sake, instinctively
understanding that Darwin needed more time to part with his beloved
pangenesis.
Darwin wrote the very next day to say that he would be happy to keep
the rabbits and breed from them and that he’d commissioned his footman
to do the work. “I have said that you would give him a present, and make it
worth his while: and that of course adds to the expense that you will be
put, and I have thought that you would prefer doing this to letting me do
so, as I am most perfectly willing to do.” 58 If Darwin finally understood that
Galton had been less than candid in his dealings with him, Galton seemed