Everybody is interested in pigeons...

The Times of London reports that a 150-year-old correspondence between the publisher, John Murray, and a clergyman, the Rev. Whitwell Elwin, has been unearthed. In the letter (an early example of peer review), Elwin responds to Murray's request for an opinion on a recently submitted manuscript, "On the Origin of Species" by a Charles Darwin. Elwin apparently did not think highly of the work, thinking the theories contained therein were so far-fetched and ridiculous that no one could possibly believe them. “At every page I was tantalised by the absence of the proofs,” Elwin wrote. Moreover, he found the writing style excessively dry and difficult. Elwin suggested that Darwin write about pigeons because “everybody is interested in pigeons”.