Chapter XLI

., page 406) on insular floras and faunas in relation to the origin of species; he here (page 410) gives his reasons against Forbes as an extensionist.) I asked him to send to you my letter, for as it was well copied it would not be troublesome to read; but whether worth reading I really do not know; I have given in it the reasons which make me strongly opposed to continental extensions.

I was very glad to get your note some days ago: I wish you would think it worth while, as you intend to have the Laburnum case translated, to write to "Wien" (that unknown place) (48/4. There is a tradition that Darwin once asked Hooker where "this place Wien is, where they publish so many books."), and find out how the Laburnum has been behaving: it really ought to be known.

The Entada is a beast. (48/5. The large seeds of Entada scandens are occasionally floated across the Atlantic and cast on the shores of Europe.); I have never differed from you about the growth of a plant in a new island being a FAR harder trial than transportal, though certainly that seems hard enough. Indeed I suspect I go even further than you in this respect; but it is too long a story.

Thank you for the Aristolochia and Viscum cases: what species were they? I ask, because oddly these two very genera I have seen advanced as instances (I forget at present by whom, but by good men) in which the agency of insects was absolutely necessary for impregnation. In our British dioecious Viscum I suppose it must be necessary. Was there anything to show that the stigma was ready for pollen in these two cases? for it seems that there are many cases in which pollen is shed long before the stigma is ready. As in our Viscum, insects carry, sufficiently regularly for impregnation, pollen from flower to flower, I should think that there must be occasional crosses even in an hermaphrodite Viscum. I have never heard of bees and butterflies, only moths, producing fertile eggs without copulation.

With respect to the Ray Society, I profited so enormously by its publishing my Cirrepedia, that I cannot quite agree with you on confining it to translations; I know not how else I could possibly have published.

I have just sent in my name for 20 pounds to the Linnaean Society, but I must confess I have done it with heavy groans, whereas I daresay you gave your 20 pounds like a light-hearted gentleman...

P.S. Wollaston speaks strongly about the intermediate grade between two varieties in insects and mollusca being often rarer than the two varieties themselves. This is obviously very important for me, and not easy to explain. I believe I have had cases from you. But, if you believe in this, I wish you would give me a sentence to quote from you on this head. There must, I think, be a good deal of truth in it; otherwise there could hardly be nearly distinct varieties under any species, for we should have instead a blending series, as in brambles and willows.

LETTER 49. TO J.D. HOOKER. July 13th, 1856.

What a book a devil's chaplain might write on the clumsy, wasteful, blundering, low, and horribly cruel works of nature! With respect to crossing, from one sentence in your letter I think you misunderstand me. I am very far from believing in hybrids: only in crossing of the same species or of close varieties. These two or three last days I have been observing wheat, and have convinced myself that L. Deslongchamps is in error about impregnation taking place in closed flowers; i.e., of course, I can judge only from external appearances. By the way, R. Brown once told me that the use of the brush on stigma of grasses was unknown. Do you know its use?...

You say most truly about multiple creations and my notions. If any one case could be proved, I should be smashed; but as I am writing my book, I try to take as much pains as possible to give the strongest cases opposed to me, and often such conjectures as occur to me. I have been working your books as the richest (and vilest) mine against me; and what hard work I have had to get up your New Zealand Flora! As I have to quote you so often, I should like to refer to Muller's case of the Australian Alps. Where is it published? Is it a book? A correct reference would be enough for me, though it is wrong even to quote without looking oneself. I should like to see very much Forbes's sheets, which you refer to; but I must confess (I hardly know why) I have got rather to mistrust poor dear Forbes.

There is wonderful ill logic in his famous and admirable memoir on distribution, as it appears to me, now that I have got it up so as to give the heads in a page. Depend on it, my saying is a true one--viz. that a compiler is a great man, and an original man a commonplace man. Any fool can generalise and speculate; but oh, my heavens, to get up at second hand a New Zealand Flora, that is work...

And now I am going to beg almost as great a favour as a man can beg of another: and I ask some five or six weeks before I want the favour done, that it may appear less horrid. It is to read, but well copied out, my pages (about forty!!) on Alpine floras and faunas, Arctic and Antarctic floras and faunas, and the supposed cold mundane period. It would be really an enormous advantage to me, as I am sure otherwise to make botanical blunders. I would specify the few points on which I most want your advice. But it is quite likely that you may object on the ground that you might be publishing before me (I hope to publish in a year at furthest), so that it would hamper and bother you; and secondly you may object to the loss of time, for I daresay it would take an hour and a half to read. It certainly would be of immense advantage to me; but of course you must not think of doing it if it would interfere with your own work.

I do not consider this request in futuro as breaking my promise to give no more trouble for some time.

From Lyell's letters, he is coming round at a railway pace on the mutability of species, and authorises me to put some sentences on this head in my preface.

I shall meet Lyell on Wednesday at Lord Stanhope's, and will ask him to forward my letter to you; though, as my arguments have not struck him, they cannot have force, and my head must be crotchety on the subject; but the crotchets keep firmly there. I have given your opinion on continuous land, I see, too strongly.

LETTER 50. TO S.P. WOODWARD. Down, July 18th [1856].

Very many thanks for your kindness in writing to me at such length, and I am glad to say for your sake that I do not see that I shall have to beg any further favours. What a range and what a variability in the Cyrena! (50/1. A genus of Lamellibranchs ranging from the Lias to the present day.) Your list of the ranges of the land and fresh-water shells certainly is most striking and curious, and especially as the antiquity of four of them is so clearly shown.

I have got Harvey's seaside book, and liked it; I was not particularly struck with it, but I will re-read the first and last chapters.

I am growing as bad as the worst about species, and hardly have a vestige of belief in the permanence of species left in me; and this confession will make you think very lightly of me, but I cannot help it. Such has become my honest conviction, though the difficulties and arguments against such heresy are certainly most weighty.

LETTER 51. TO C. LYELL. November 10th [1856].

I know you like all cases of negative geological evidence being upset. I fancied that I was a most unwilling believer in negative evidence; but yet such negative evidence did seem to me so strong that in my "Fossil Lepadidae" I have stated, giving reasons, that I did not believe there could have existed any sessile cirripedes during the Secondary ages. Now, the other day Bosquet of Maestricht sends me a perfect drawing of a perfect Chthamalus (a recent genus) from the Chalk! (51/1. Chthamalus, a genus of Cirripedia. ("A Monograph on the Sub-class Cirripedia," by Charles Darwin, page 447. London, 1854.) A fossil species of this genus of Upper Cretaceous age was named by Bosquet Chthamalus Darwini. See "Origin," Edition VI., page 284; also Zittel, "Traite de Paleontologie," Traduit par Dr. C. Barrois, Volume II., page 540, figure 748. Paris, 1887.) Indeed, it is stretching a point to make it specifically distinct from our living British species. It is a genus not hitherto found in any Tertiary bed.

LETTER 52. TO T.H. HUXLEY. Down, July 9th, 1857.

I am extremely much obliged to you for having so fully entered on my point. I knew I was on unsafe ground, but it proves far unsafer than I had thought. I had thought that Brulle (52/1. This no doubt refers to A. Brulle's paper in the "Comptes rendus" 1844, of which a translation is given in the "Annals and Mag. of Natural History," 1844, page 484. In speaking of the development of the Articulata, the author says "that the appendages are manifested at an earlier period of the existence of an Articulate animal the more complex its degree of organisation, and vice versa that they make their appearance the later, the fewer the number of transformations which it has to undergo.") had a wider basis for his generalisation, for I made the extract several years ago, and I presume (I state it as some excuse for myself) that I doubted it, for, differently from my general habit, I have not extracted his grounds. It was meeting with Barneoud's paper which made me think there might be truth in the doctrine. (52/2. Apparently Barneoud "On the Organogeny of Irregular Corollas," from the "Comptes rendus," 1847, as given in "Annals and Mag. of Natural History," 1847, page 440. The paper chiefly deals with the fact that in their earliest condition irregular flowers are regular. The view attributed to Barneoud does not seem so definitely given in this paper as in a previous one ("Ann. Sc. Nat." Bot., Tom. VI., page 268.) Your instance of heart and brain of fish seems to me very good. It was a very stupid blunder on my part not thinking of the posterior part of the time of development. I shall, of course, not allude to this subject, which I rather grieve about, as I wished it to be true; but, alas! a scientific man ought to have no wishes, no affections--a mere heart of stone.

There is only one point in your letter which at present I cannot quite follow you in: supposing that Barneoud's (I do not say Brulle's) remarks were true and universal--i.e., that the petals which have to undergo the greatest amount of development and modification begin to change the soonest from the simple and common embryonic form of the petal--if this were a true law, then I cannot but think that it would throw light on Milne Edwards' proposition that the wider apart the classes of animals are, the sooner do they diverge from the common embryonic plan--which common embryonic [plan] may be compared with the similar petals in the early bud, the several petals in one flower being compared to the distinct but similar embryos of the different classes. I much wish that you would so far keep this in mind, that whenever we meet I might hear how far you differ or concur in this. I have always looked at Barneoud's and Brulle's proposition as only in some degree analogous.

P.S. I see in my abstract of Milne Edwards' paper, he speaks of "the most perfect and important organs" as being first developed, and I should have thought that this was usually synonymous with the most developed or modified.

LETTER 53. TO J.D. HOOKER.

(53/1. The following letter is chiefly of interest as showing the amount and kind of work required for Darwin's conclusions on "large genera varying," which occupy no more than two or three pages in the "Origin" (Edition I., page 55). Some correspondence on the subject is given in the "Life and Letters," II., pages 102-5.)

Down, August 22nd [1857].

Your handwriting always rejoices the cockles of my heart; though you have no reason to be "overwhelmed with shame," as I did not expect to hear.

I write now chiefly to know whether you can tell me how to write to Hermann Schlagenheit (is this spelt right?) (53/2. Schlagintweit.), for I believe he is returned to England, and he has poultry skins for me from W. Elliot of Madras.

I am very glad to hear that you have been tabulating some Floras about varieties. Will you just tell me roughly the result? Do you not find it takes much time? I am employing a laboriously careful schoolmaster, who does the tabulating and dividing into two great cohorts, more carefully than I can. This being so, I should be very glad some time to have Koch, Webb's Canaries, and Ledebour, and Grisebach, but I do not know even where Rumelia is. I shall work the British flora with three separate Floras; and I intend dividing the varieties into two classes, as Asa Gray and Henslow give the materials, and, further, A. Gray and H.C. Watson have marked for me the forms, which they consider real species, but yet are very close to others; and it will be curious to compare results. If it will all hold good it is very important for me; for it explains, as I think, all classification, i.e. the quasi-branching and sub-branching of forms, as if from one root, big genera increasing and splitting up, etc., as you will perceive. But then comes in, also, what I call a principle of divergence, which I think I can explain, but which is too long, and perhaps you would not care to hear. As you have been on this subject, you might like to hear what very little is complete (for my schoolmaster has had three weeks' holidays)--only three cases as yet, I see.

BABINGTON--British Flora.

593 species in genera of 5 and 593 (odd chance equal) in upwards have in a thousand genera of 3 and downwards have species presenting vars. in a thousand presenting vars. 134/1000.* 37/1000.

(*53/3. This sentence may be interpreted as follows: The number of species which present varieties are 134 per thousand in genera of 5 species and upwards. The result is obtained from tabulation of 593 species.)

HOOKER--New Zealand.

Genera with 4 species and With 3 species and downwards upwards, 150/1000. 114/1000.

GODRON--Central France.

With 5 species and upwards With 3 species and downwards 160/1000. 105/1000.

I do not enter into details on omitting introduced plants and very varying genera, as Rubus, Salix, Rosa, etc., which would make the result more in favour.

I enjoyed seeing Henslow extremely, though I was a good way from well at the time. Farewell, my dear Hooker: do not forget your visit here some time.

LETTER 54. TO J.D. HOOKER. Down, November 14th [1857].

On Tuesday I will send off from London, whither I go on that day, Ledebour's three remaining volumes, Grisebach and Cybele, i.e., all that I have, and most truly am I obliged to you for them. I find the rule, as yet, of the species varying most in the large genera universal, except in Miquel's very brief and therefore imperfect list of the Holland flora, which makes me very anxious to tabulate a fuller flora of Holland. I shall remain in London till Friday morning, and if quite convenient to send me two volumes of D.C. Prodromus, I could take them home and tabulate them. I should think a volume with a large best known natural family, and a volume with several small broken families would be best, always supposing that the varieties are conspicuously marked in both. Have you the volume published by Lowe on Madeira? If so and if any varieties are marked I should much like to see it, to see if I can make out anything about habitats of vars. in so small an area--a point on which I have become very curious. I fear there is no chance of your possessing Forbes and Hancock "British Shells," a grand work, which I much wish to tabulate.

Very many thanks for seed of Adlumia cirrhosa, which I will carefully observe. My notice in the G. Ch. on Kidney Beans (54.1 "On the Agency of Bees in the Fertilisation of Papilionaceous Flowers" ("Gardeners' Chronicle," 1857, page 725).) has brought me a curious letter from an intelligent gardener, with a most remarkable lot of beans, crossed in a marvellous manner IN THE FIRST GENERATION, like the peas sent to you by Berkeley and like those experimentalised on by Gartner and by Wiegmann. It is a very odd case; I shall sow these seeds and see what comes up. How very odd that pollen of one form should affect the outer coats and size of the bean produced by pure species!...

LETTER 55. TO J.D. HOOKER. Down [1857?].

You know how I work subjects: namely, if I stumble on any general remark, and if I find it confirmed in any other very distinct class, then I try to find out whether it is true,--if it has any bearing on my work. The following, perhaps, may be important to me. Dr. Wight remarks that Cucurbitaceae (55/1. Wight, "Remarks on the Fruit of the Natural Order Cucurbitaceae" ("Ann. Mag. Nat. Hist." VIII., page 261). R. Wight, F.R.S. (1796-1872) was Superintendent of the Madras Botanic Garden.) is a very isolated family, and has very diverging affinities. I find, strongly put and illustrated, the very same remark in the genera of hymenoptera. Now, it is not to me at first apparent why a very distinct and isolated group should be apt to have more divergent affinities than a less isolated group. I am aware that most genera have more affinities than in two ways, which latter, perhaps, is the commonest case. I see how infinitely vague all this is; but I should very much like to know what you and Mr. Bentham (if he will read this), who have attended so much to the principles of classification, think of this. Perhaps the best way would be to think of half a dozen most isolated groups of plants, and then consider whether the affinities point in an unusual number of directions. Very likely you may think the whole question too vague to be worth consideration.

LETTER 56. TO J.D. HOOKER. Down, April 8th [1857].

I now want to ask your opinion, and for facts on a point; and as I shall often want to do this during the next year or two, so let me say, once for all, that you must not take trouble out of mere good nature (of which towards me you have a most abundant stock), but you must consider, in regard to the trouble any question may take, whether you think it worth while--as all loss of time so far lessens your original work--to give me facts to be quoted on your authority in my work. Do not think I shall be disappointed if you cannot spare time; for already I have profited enormously from your judgment and knowledge. I earnestly beg you to act as I suggest, and not take trouble solely out of good-nature.

My point is as follows: Harvey gives the case of Fucus varying remarkably, and yet in same way under most different conditions. D. Don makes same remark in regard to Juncus bufonius in England and India. Polygala vulgaris has white, red, and blue flowers in Faroe, England, and I think Herbert says in Zante. Now such cases seem to me very striking, as showing how little relation some variations have to climatal conditions.

Do you think there are many such cases? Does Oxalis corniculata present exactly the same varieties under very different climates?

How is it with any other British plants in New Zealand, or at the foot of the Himalaya? Will you think over this and let me hear the result?

One other question: do you remember whether the introduced Sonchus in New Zealand was less, equally, or more common than the aboriginal stock of the same species, where both occurred together? I forget whether there is any other case parallel with this curious one of the Sonchus...

I have been making good, though slow, progress with my book, for facts have been falling nicely into groups, enlightening each other.

LETTER 57. TO T.H. HUXLEY. Moor Park, Farnham, Surrey [1857?].

Your letter has been forwarded to me here, where I am profiting by a few weeks' rest and hydropathy. Your letter has interested and amused me much. I am extremely glad you have taken up the Aphis (57/1. Professor Huxley's paper on the organic reproduction of Aphis is in the "Trans. Linn. Soc." XXII. (1858), page 193. Prof. Owen had treated the subject in his introductory Hunterian lecture "On Parthenogenesis" (1849). His theory cannot be fully given here. Briefly, he holds that parthenogenesis is due to the inheritance of a "remnant of spermatic virtue": when the "spermatic force" or "virtue" is exhausted fresh impregnation occurs. Huxley severely criticises both Owen's facts and his theory.) question, but, for Heaven's sake, do not come the mild Hindoo (whatever he may be) to Owen; your father confessor trembles for you. I fancy Owen thinks much of this doctrine of his; I never from the first believed it, and I cannot but think that the same power is concerned in producing aphides without fertilisation, and producing, for instance, nails on the amputated stump of a man's fingers, or the new tail of a lizard. By the way, I saw somewhere during the last week or so a statement of a man rearing from the same set of eggs winged and wingless aphides, which seemed new to me. Does not some Yankee say that the American viviparous aphides are winged? I am particularly glad that you are ruminating on the act of fertilisation: it has long seemed to me the most wonderful and curious of physiological problems. I have often and often speculated for amusement on the subject, but quite fruitlessly. Do you not think that the conjugation of the Diatomaceae will ultimately throw light on the subject? But the other day I came to the conclusion that some day we shall have cases of young being produced from spermatozoa or pollen without an ovule. Approaching the subject from the side which attracts me most, viz., inheritance, I have lately been inclined to speculate, very crudely and indistinctly, that propagation by true fertilisation will turn out to be a sort of mixture, and not true fusion, of two distinct individuals, or rather of innumerable individuals, as each parent has its parents and ancestors. I can understand on no other view the way in which crossed forms go back to so large an extent to ancestral forms. But all this, of course, is infinitely crude. I hope to be in London in the course of this month, and there are two or three points which, for my own sake, I want to discuss briefly with you.

LETTER 58. TO T.H. HUXLEY. Down, September 26th [1857].

Thanks for your very pleasant note. It amuses me to see what a bug-bear I have made myself to you; when having written some very pungent and good sentence it must be very disagreeable to have my face rise up like an ugly ghost. (58/1. This probably refers to Darwin's wish to moderate a certain pugnacity in Huxley.) I have always suspected Agassiz of superficiality and wretched reasoning powers; but I think such men do immense good in their way. See how he stirred up all Europe about glaciers. By the way, Lyell has been at the glaciers, or rather their effects, and seems to have done good work in testing and judging what others have done...

In regard to classification and all the endless disputes about the "Natural System," which no two authors define in the same way, I believe it ought, in accordance to my heterodox notions, to be simply genealogical. But as we have no written pedigrees you will, perhaps, say this will not help much; but I think it ultimately will, whenever heterodoxy becomes orthodoxy, for it will clear away an immense amount of rubbish about the value of characters, and will make the difference between analogy and homology clear. The time will come, I believe, though I shall not live to see it, when we shall have very fairly true genealogical trees of each great kingdom of Nature.

LETTER 59. TO T.H. HUXLEY. Down, December 16th [1857].

In my opinion your Catalogue (59/1. It appears from a letter to Sir J.D. Hooker (December 25th, 1857) that the reference is to the proofs of Huxley's "Explanatory Preface to the Catalogue of the Palaeontological Collection in the Museum of Practical Geology," by T.H. Huxley and R. Etheridge, 1865. Mr. Huxley appends a note at page xlix: "It should be noted that these pages were written before the appearance of Mr. Darwin's book on 'The Origin of Species'--a work which has effected a revolution in biological speculation.") is simply the very best resume, by far, on the whole science of Natural History, which I have ever seen. I really have no criticisms: I agree with every word. Your metaphors and explanations strike me as admirable. In many parts it is curious how what you have written agrees with what I have been writing, only with the melancholy difference for me that you put everything in twice as striking a manner as I do. I append, more for the sake of showing that I have attended to the whole than for any other object, a few most trivial criticisms.

I was amused to meet with some of the arguments, which you advanced in talk with me, on classification; and it pleases me, [that] my long proses were so far not thrown away, as they led you to bring out here some good sentences. But on classification (59/2. This probably refers to Mr. Huxley's discussion on "Natural Classification," a subject hardly susceptible of fruitful treatment except from an evolutionary standpoint.) I am not quite sure that I yet wholly go with you, though I agree with every word you have here said. The whole, I repeat, in my opinion is admirable and excellent.

LETTER 60. TO J.D. HOOKER. Down, February 28th [1858].

Hearty thanks for De Candolle received. I have put the big genera in hand. Also many thanks for your valuable remarks on the affinities of the species in great genera, which will be of much use to me in my chapter on classification. Your opinion is what I had expected from what little I knew, but I much wanted it confirmed, and many of your remarks were more or less new to me and all of value.

You give a poor picture of the philosophy of Botany. From my ignorance, I suppose, I can hardly persuade myself that things are quite as bad as you make them,--you might have been writing remarks on Ornithology! I shall meditate much on your remarks, which will also come in very useful when I write and consider my tables of big and small genera. I grieve for myself to say that Watson agrees with your view, but with much doubt. I gave him no guide what your opinion was. I have written to A. Gray and to X., who--i.e. the latter--on this point may be looked at as S. Smith's Foolometer.

I am now working several of the large local Floras, with leaving out altogether all the smallest genera. When I have done this, and seen what the sections of the largest genera say, and seen what the results are of range and commonness of varying species, I must come to some definite conclusion whether or not entirely to give up the ghost. I shall then show how my theory points, how the facts stand, then state the nature of your grievous assault and yield entirely or defend the case as far as I can honestly.

Again I thank you for your invaluable assistance. I have not felt the blow [Hooker's criticisms] so much of late, as I have been beyond measure interested on the constructive instinct of the hive-bee. Adios, you terrible worrier of poor theorists!

LETTER 61. TO J.D. HOOKER. Down [1858?]

Many thanks for Ledebour and still more for your letter, with its admirable resume of all your objections. It is really most kind of you to take so very much trouble about what seems to you, and probably is, mere vagaries.

I will earnestly try and be cautious. I will write out my tables and conclusion, and (when well copied out) I hope you will be so kind as to read it. I will then put it by and after some months look at it with fresh eyes. I will briefly work in all your objections and Watson's. I labour under a great difficulty from feeling sure that, with what very little systematic work I have done, small genera were more interesting and therefore more attracted my attention.

One of your remarks I do not see the bearing of under your point of view--namely, that in monotypic genera "the variation and variability" are "much more frequently noticed" than in polytypic genera. I hardly like to ask, but this is the only one of your arguments of which I do not see the bearing; and I certainly should be very glad to know. I believe I am the slowest (perhaps the worst) thinker in England; and I now consequently fully admit the full hostility of Urticaceae, which I will give in my tables.

I will make no remarks on your objections, as I do hope you will read my MS., which will not cost you much trouble when fairly copied out. From my own experience, I hardly believe that the most sagacious observers, without counting, could have predicted whether there were more or fewer recorded varieties in large or small genera; for I found, when actually making the list, that I could never strike a balance in my mind,--a good many varieties occurring together, in small or in large genera, always threw me off the balance...

P.S.--I have just thought that your remark about the much variation of monotypic genera was to show me that even in these, the smallest genera, there was much variability. If this be so, then do not answer; and I will so understand it.

LETTER 62. TO J.D. HOOKER. February 23rd [1858].

Will you think of some of the largest genera with which you are well acquainted, and then suppose 4/5 of the species utterly destroyed and unknown in the sections (as it were) as much as possible in the centre of such great genera. Then would the remaining 1/5 of the species, forming a few sections, be, according to the general practice of average good Botanists, ranked as distinct genera? Of course they would in that case be closely related genera. The question, in fact, is, are all the species in a gigantic genus kept together in that genus, because they are really so very closely similar as to be inseparable? or is it because no chasms or boundaries can be drawn separating the many species? The question might have been put for Orders.

LETTER 63. TO J.D. HOOKER. Down, February 9th [1858].

I should be very much obliged for your opinion on the enclosed. You may remember in the three first volumes tabulated, all orders went right except Labiatae. By the way, if by any extraordinary chance you have not thrown away the scrap of paper with former results, I wish you would return it, for I have lost my copy, and I shall have all the division to do again; but DO NOT hunt for it, for in any case I should have gone over the calculation again.

Now I have done the three other volumes. You will see that all species in the six volumes together go right, and likewise all orders in the three last volumes, except Verbenaceae. Is not Verbenaceae very closely allied to Labiatae? If so, one would think that it was not mere chance, this coincidence. The species in Labiatae and Verbenaceae together are between 1/5 and 1/6 of all the species (15,645), which I have now tabulated.

Now, bearing in mind the many local Floras which I have tabulated (belting the whole northern hemisphere), and considering that they (and authors of D.C. Prodromus) would probably take different degrees of care in recording varieties, and the genera would be divided on different principles by different men, etc., I am much surprised at the uniformity of the result, and I am satisfied that there must be truth in the rule that the small genera vary less than the large. What do you think? Hypothetically I can conjecture how the Labiatae might fail--namely, if some small divisions of the Order were now coming into importance in the world and varying much and making species. This makes me want to know whether you could divide the Labiatae into a few great natural divisions, and then I would tabulate them separately as sub-orders. I see Lindley makes so many divisions that there would not be enough in each for an average. I send the table of the Labiatae for the chance of your being able to do this for me. You might draw oblique lines including and separating both large and small genera. I have also divided all the species into two equal masses, and my rule holds good for all the species in a mass in the six volumes; but it fails in several (four) large Orders--viz. Labiatae, Scrophulariaceae, Acanthaceae, and Proteaceae. But, then, when the species are divided into two almost exactly equal divisions, the divisions with large genera are so very few: for instance, in Solanaceae, Solanum balances all others. In Labiatae seven gigantic genera balance all others (viz. 113), and in Proteaceae five genera balance all others. Now, according to my hypothetical notions, I am far from supposing that all genera go on increasing forever, and therefore I am not surprised at this result, when the division is so made that only a very few genera are on one side. But, according to my notions, the sections or sub-genera of the gigantic genera ought to obey my rule (i.e., supposing a gigantic genus had come to its maximum, whatever increase was still going on ought to be going on in the larger sub-genera). Do you think that the sections of the gigantic genera in D.C. Prodromus are generally NATURAL: i.e. not founded on mere artificial characters? If you think that they are generally made as natural as they can be, then I should like very much to tabulate the sub-genera, considering them for the time as good genera. In this case, and if you do not think me unreasonable to ask it, I should be very glad of the loan of Volumes X., XI., XII., and XIV., which include Acanthaceae, Scrophulariaceae, Labiatae, and Proteaceae,--that is, the orders which, when divided quite equally, do not accord with my rule, and in which a very few genera balance all the others.

I have written you a tremendous long prose.

LETTER 64. TO J.D. HOOKER. Down, June 8th [1858].

I am confined to the sofa with boils, so you must let me write in pencil. You would laugh if you could know how much your note pleased me. I had the firmest conviction that you would say all my MS. was bosh, and thank God, you are one of the few men who dare speak the truth. Though I should not have much cared about throwing away what you have seen, yet I have been forced to confess to myself that all was much alike, and if you condemned that you would condemn all my life's work, and that I confess made me a little low; but I could have borne it, for I have the conviction that I have honestly done my best. The discussion comes in at the end of the long chapter on variation in a state of nature, so that I have discussed, as far as I am able, what to call varieties. I will try to leave out all allusion to genera coming in and out in this part, till when I discuss the "Principle of Divergence," which, with "Natural Selection," is the keystone of my book; and I have very great confidence it is sound. I would have this discussion copied out, if I could really think it would not bore you to read,--for, believe me, I value to the full every word of criticism from you, and the advantage which I have derived from you cannot be told...

I am glad to hear that poor old Brown is dying so easily...

You will think it paltry, but as I was asked to pay for printing the Diploma [from a Society of which he had been made an honorary member], I did not like to refuse, so I send 1 pound. But I think it a shabby proceeding. If a gentleman did me some service, though unasked to do it, and then demanded payment, I should pay him, and think him a shabby dog; and on this principle I send my 1 pound.

(65/1. The following four letters refer to an inquiry instituted in 1858 by the Trustees of the British Museum as to the disposal of the Natural History Collections. The inquiry was one of the first steps towards the establishment of the Cromwell Road Museum, which was effected in 1875.)

LETTER 65. TO R.I. MURCHISON. Down, June 19th [1858].

I have just received your note. Unfortunately I cannot attend at the British Museum on Monday. I do not suppose my opinion on the subject of your note can be of any value, as I have not much considered the subject, or had the advantage of discussing it with other naturalists. But my impression is, that there is much weight in what you say about not breaking up the natural history collection of the British Museum. I think a national collection ought to be in London. I can, however, see that some weighty arguments might be advanced in favour of Kew, owing to the immense value of Sir W. Hooker's collection and library; but these are private property, and I am not aware that there is any certainty of their always remaining at Kew. Had this been the case, I should have thought that the botanical collection might have been removed there without endangering the other branches of the collections. But I think it would be the greatest evil which could possibly happen to natural science in this country if the other collections were ever to be removed from the British Museum and Library.

LETTER 66. TO T.H. HUXLEY.

(66/1. The memorial referred to in the following letter was addressed on November 18th to the Chancellor of the Exchequer. It was signed by Huxley, Bentham, W.H. Harvey, Henfrey, Henslow, Lindley, Busk, Carpenter, and Darwin. The memorial, which is accessible, as published in the "Gardeners' Chronicle," November 27th, 1858, page 861, recommended, speaking generally, the consolidation of the National Botanical collections at Kew.

In February, 1900, a Committee was appointed by the Lords Commissioners of the Treasury "to consider the present arrangements under which botanical work is done and collections maintained by the Trustees of the British Museum, and under the First Commissioner of Works at Kew, respectively; and to report what changes (if any) in those arrangements are necessary or desirable in order to avoid duplication of work and collections at the two institutions." The Committee published their report in March, 1901, recommending an arrangement similar to that proposed in 1858.)

Down, October 23rd [1858].

The names which you give as supporting your memorial make me quite distrust my own judgment; but, as I must say yea or nay, I am forced to say that I doubt the wisdom of the movement, and am not willing at present to sign. My reasons, perhaps of very little value, are as follows. The governing classes are thoroughly unscientific, and the men of art and of archaeology have much greater weight with Government than we have. If we make a move to separate from the British Museum, I cannot but fear that we may go to the dogs. I think we owe our position in large part to the hundreds of thousands of people who visit the British Museum, attracted by the heterogeneous mixture of objects. If we lost this support, as I think we should--for a mere collection of animals does not seem very attractive to the masses (judging from the Museum of the Zoological Society, formerly in Leicester Square)--then I do not think we should get nearly so much aid from Government. Therefore I should be inclined to stick to the mummies and Assyrian gods as long as we could. If we knew that Government was going to turn us out, then, and not till then, I should be inclined to make an energetic move. If we were to separate, I do not believe that we should have funds granted for the many books required for occasional reference: each man must speak from his own experience. I have so repeatedly required to see old Transactions and old Travels, etc., that I should regret extremely, when at work at the British Museum, to be separated from the entire library. The facilities for working at certain great classes--as birds, large fossils, etc.--are no doubt as bad as possible, or rather impossible, on the open days; but I have found the working rooms of the Assistants very convenient for all other classes on all days.

In regard to the botanical collections, I am too ignorant to express any opinion. The point seems to be how far botanists would object to travel to Kew; but there are evidently many great advantages in the transportation.

If I had my own way, I would make the British Museum collection only a typical one for display, which would be quite as amusing and far more instructive to the populace (and I think to naturalists) than the present enormous display of birds and mammals. I would save expense of stuffing, and would keep all skins, except a few "typicals," in drawers. Thus much room would be saved, and a little more space could be given to real workers, who could work all day. Rooms fitted up with thousands of drawers would cost very little. With this I should be contented. Until I had pretty sure information that we were going to be turned out, I would not stir in the matter. With such opponents as you name, I daresay I am quite wrong; but this is my best, though doubtful, present judgment...

It seems to me dangerous even to hint at a new Scientific Museum--a popular Museum, and to subsidise the Zoological Gardens; it would, I think, frighten any Government.

LETTER 67. TO J.D. HOOKER. Moor Park, Farnham, Surrey [October] 29th [1858].

As you say that you have good private information that Government does intend to remove the collection from the British Museum, the case to me individually is wholly changed; and as the memorial now stands, with such expression at its head, I have no objection whatever to sign. I must express a very strong opinion that it would be an immense evil to remove to Kensington, not on account of the men of science so much as for the masses in the whole eastern and central part of London. I further think it would be a great evil to separate a typical collection (which I can by no means look at as only popular) from the collection in full. Might not some expression be added, even stronger than those now used, on the display (which is a sort of vanity in the curators) of such a vast number of birds and mammals, with such a loss of room. I am low at the conviction that Government will never give money enough for a really good library.

I do not want to be crotchety, but I should hate signing without some expression about the site being easily accessible to the populace of the whole of London.

I repeat, as things now stand, I shall be proud to sign.

LETTER 68. TO T.H. HUXLEY. Down, November 3rd [1858].

I most entirely subscribe to all you say in your note. I have had some correspondence with Hooker on the subject. As it seems certain that a movement in the British Museum is generally anticipated, my main objection is quite removed; and, as I have told Hooker, I have no objection whatever to sign a memorial of the nature of the one he sent me or that now returned. Both seem to me very good. I cannot help being fearful whether Government will ever grant money enough for books. I can see many advantages in not being under the unmotherly wing of art and archaeology, and my only fear was that we were not strong enough to live without some protection, so profound, I think, is the contempt for and ignorance of Natural Science amongst the gentry of England. Hooker tells me that I should be converted into favour of Kensington Gore if I heard all that could be said in its favour; but I cannot yet help thinking so western a locality a great misfortune. Has Lyell been consulted? His would be a powerful name, and such names go for much with our ignorant Governors. You seem to have taken much trouble in the business, and I honour you for it.

LETTER 69. TO J.D. HOOKER. Down, November 9th [1858].

I am quite delighted to hear about the Copley and Lyell. (69/1. The Copley Medal of the Royal Society was awarded to Lyell in 1858.) I have grown hot with indignation many times thinking of the way the proposal was met last year, according to your account of it. I am also very glad to hear of Hancock (Albany Hancock received a Royal Medal in 1858.); it will show the provincials are not neglected. Altogether the medals are capital. I shall be proud and bound to help in any way about the eloge, which is rather a heavy tax on proposers of medals, as I found about Richardson and Westwood; but Lyell's case will be twenty times as difficult. I will begin this very evening dotting down a few remarks on Lyell; though, no doubt, most will be superfluous, and several would require deliberate consideration. Anyhow, such notes may be a preliminary aid to you; I will send them in a few days' time, and will do anything else you may wish...

P.S.--I have had a letter from Henslow this morning. He comes here on [Thursday] 25th, and I shall be delighted to see him; but it stops my coming to the Club, as I had arranged to do, and now I suppose I shall not be in London till December 16th, if odds and ends do not compel me to come sooner. Of course I have not said a word to Henslow of my change of plans. I had looked forward with pleasure to a chat with you and others.

P.S. 2.--I worked all yesterday evening in thinking, and have written the paper sent by this post this morning. Not one sentence would do, but it is the sort of rough sketch which I should have drawn out if I had had to do it. God knows whether it will at all aid you. It is miserably written, with horridly bad metaphors, probably horrid bad grammar. It is my deliberate impression, such as I should have written to any friend who had asked me what I thought of Lyell's merits. I will do anything else which you may wish, or that I can.

LETTER 70. TO J.D. HOOKER. Down, December 30th [1858].

I have had this copied to save you trouble, as it was vilely written, and is now vilely expressed.

Your letter has interested me greatly; but how inextricable are the subjects which we are discussing! I do not think I said that I thought the productions of Asia were HIGHER (70/1. On the use of the terms "higher" and "lower" see Letters 35 and 36.) than those of Australia. I intend carefully to avoid this expression (70/2. In a paper of pencilled notes pinned into Darwin's copy of the "Vestiges" occur the words: "Never use the word (sic) higher and lower."), for I do not think that any one has a definite idea what is meant by higher, except in classes which can loosely be compared with man. On our theory of Natural Selection, if the organisms of any area belonging to the Eocene or Secondary periods were put into competition with those now existing in the same area (or probably in any part of the world) they (i.e. the old ones) would be beaten hollow and be exterminated; if the theory be true, this must be so. In the same manner, I believe, a greater number of the productions of Asia, the largest territory in the world, would beat those of Australia, than conversely. So it seems to be between Europe and North America, for I can hardly believe in the difference of the stream of commerce causing so great a difference in the proportions of immigrants. But this sort of highness (I wish I could invent some expression, and must try to do so) is different from highness in the common acceptation of the word. It might be connected with degradation of organisation: thus the blind degraded worm-like snake (Typhlops) might supplant the true earthworm. Here then would be degradation in the class, but certainly increase in the scale of organisation in the general inhabitants of the country. On the other hand, it would be quite as easy to believe that true earthworms might beat out the Typhlops. I do not see how this "competitive highness" can be tested in any way by us. And this is a comfort to me when mentally comparing the Silurian and Recent organisms. Not that I doubt a long course of "competitive highness" will ultimately make the organisation higher in every sense of the word; but it seems most difficult to test it. Look at the Erigeron canadensis on the one hand and Anacharis (70/3. Anacharis (Elodea canadensis) and Erigeron canadensis are both successful immigrants from America.) on the other; these plants must have some advantage over European productions, to spread as they have. Yet who could discover it? Monkeys can co-exist with sloths and opossums, orders at the bottom of the scale; and the opossums might well be beaten by placental insectivores, coming from a country where there were no monkeys, etc. I should be sorry to give up the view that an old and very large continuous territory would generally produce organisms higher in the competitive sense than a smaller territory. I may, of course, be quite wrong about the plants of Australia (and your facts are, of course, quite new to me on their highness), but when I read the accounts of the immense spreading of European plants in Australia, and think of the wool and corn brought thence to Europe, and not one plant naturalised, I can hardly avoid the suspicion that Europe beats Australia in its productions. If many (i.e. more than one or two) Australian plants are TRULY naturalised in India (N.B. Naturalisation on Indian mountains hardly quite fair, as mountains are small islands in the land) I must strike my colours. I should be glad to hear whether what I have written very obscurely on this point produces ANY effect on you; for I want to clear my mind, as perhaps I should put a sentence or two in my abstract on this subject. (70/4. Abstract was Darwin's name for the "Origin" during parts of 1858 and 1859.)

I have always been willing to strike my colours on former immense tracts of land in oceans, if any case required it in an eminent degree. Perhaps yours may be a case, but at present I greatly prefer land in the Antarctic regions, where now there is only ice and snow, but which before the Glacial period might well have been clothed by vegetation. You have thus to invent far less land, and that more central; and aid is got by floating ice for transporting seed.

I hope I shall not weary you by scribbling my notions at this length. After writing last to you I began to think that the Malay Land might have existed through part of the Glacial epoch. Why I at first doubted was from the difference of existing mammals in different islands; but many are very close, and some identical in the islands, and I am constantly deceiving myself from thinking of the little change which the shells and plants, whilst all co-existing in their own northern hemisphere, have undergone since the Glacial epoch; but I am convinced that this is most false reasoning, for the relations of organism to new organisms, when thrown together, are by far the most important.

When you speak of plants having undergone more change since old geological periods than animals, are you not rather comparing plants with higher animals? Think how little some, indeed many, mollusca have changed. Remember Silurian Nautilus, Lingula and other Brachiopods, and Nucula, and amongst Echinoderms, the Silurian Asterias, etc.

What you say about lowness of brackish-water plants interests me. I remember that they are apt to be social (i.e. many individuals in comparison to specific forms), and I should be tempted to look at this as a case of a very small area, and consequently of very few individuals in comparison with those on the land or in pure fresh-water; and hence less development (odious word!) than on land or fresh-water. But here comes in your two-edged sword! I should like much to see any paper on plants of brackish water or on the edge of the sea; but I suppose such has never been published.

Thanks about Nelumbium, for I think this was the very plant which from the size of seed astonished me, and which A. De Candolle adduced as a marvellous case of almost impossible transport. I now find to my surprise that herons do feed sometimes on [illegible] fruit; and grebes on seeds of Compositae.

Many thanks for offer of help about a grant for the Abstract; but I should hope it would sell enough to pay expenses.

I am reading your letter and scribbling as I go on.

Your oak and chestnut case seems very curious; is it not the more so as beeches have gone to, or come from the south? But I vehemently protest against you or any one making such cases especial marvels, without you are prepared to say why each species in any flora is twice or thrice, etc., rarer than each other species which grows in the same soil. The more I think, the more evident is it to me how utterly ignorant we are of the thousand contingencies on which range, frequency, and extinction of each species depend.

I have sometimes thought, from Edentata (70/5. No doubt a slip of the pen for Monotremata.) and Marsupialia, that Australia retains a remnant of the former and ancient state of the fauna of the world, and I suppose that you are coming to some such conclusion for plants; but is not the relation between the Cape and Australia too special for such views? I infer from your writings that the relation is too special between Fuegia and Australia to allow us to look at the resemblances in certain plants as the relics of mundane resemblances. On the other hand, [have] not the Sandwich Islands in the Northern Hemisphere some odd relations to Australia? When we are dead and gone what a noble subject will be Geographical Distribution!

You may say what you like, but you will never convince me that I do not owe you ten times as much as you can owe me. Farewell, my dear Hooker. I am sorry to hear that you are both unwell with influenza. Do not bother yourself in answering anything in this, except your general impression on the battle between N. and S.

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