Sent from Charles Howard Usher
24 Apr 1915
Description:

‘Dear Pearson,

Trigg’s eyes & some pieces of human iris have been on my mind. I gave them to an assistant for cutting purposes & a few days before your letter arrived I made an enquiry and found the specimens were in celloidin[?]. I have asked again since your letter came and sections are promised by the end of next week, so you should have a report by beginning of following week. Things move slowly just now. Both ophthalmic assistants are in khaki & we have now no house surgeon.

Dog skulls & skeletons. There are two or three macerating here which must be looked to soon, one is a pure Pek.

Stoat plate. Several alterations marked in ink on the plate are necessary. Second line at bottom of plate “on the snow” sounds to me a little odd, would ‘amongst’ be equally good? Possibly not. Yes, my feeling is that altitude, cold snow or whatever the principal factor is has acted through generations in producing the changes that take place in the present generation. So that if one of the stoats with brown coat in winter were taken for a winter to the top of Ben Nevis it would not turn white. You will remember an example the opposite of this when a mountain hare that escaped from Laydown[?] Hollow became white in the winter in Surrey. Harvie-Brown & Buckley[?] stated in 1892 that stoats on the top of Ben Nevis retain their white coat even in the summer. I wrote to the former a few days ago to ask if particulars of months & numbers could be got, but so far have had no reply. It is exceedingly difficult to come to definite conclusions from these stoats when possibilities of age, temperature etc., altitude & confinement are considered. E.g. has age any influence, or altitude etc. Anyway I think it is quite true what you have said at the foot of the plate.

Photo of under surface of stoat skin. The blood staining is within the dotted line on the tracing.

I hope you will have no difficulty in getting the grants.

Yrs. sincerely,

C.H. Usher.’