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ge 69.) does behave in a state of nature in the provoking
manner described by me. With respect to Wagner's curious discovery my
opinion is worth nothing; no doubt it is a great anomaly, but it does
not appear to me nearly so incredible as to you. Remember how allied
forms in the Hydrozoa differ in their so-called alternate generations;
I follow those naturalists who look at all such cases as forms of
gemmation; and a multitude of organisms have this power or traces
of this power at all ages from the germ to maturity. With respect to
Agassiz's views, there were many, and there are still not a few, who
believe that the same species is created on many spots. I wrote to
Bates, and he will send you his mimetic paper; and I dare say others: he
is a first-rate man.

Your case of the wingless insects near the Rocky Mountains is extremely
curious. I am sure I have heard of some such case in the Old World:
I think on the Caucasus. Would not my argument about wingless insular
insects perhaps apply to truly Alpine insects? for would it not be
destruction to them to be blown from their proper home? I should like to
write on many points at greater length to you, but I have no strength to
spare.

LETTER 187. TO A.R. WALLACE. Down, September 22nd [1865].

I am much obliged for your extract (187/1. Mr. Wallace had sent Darwin
a note about a tufted cock-blackbird, which transmitted the character
to some of its offspring.); I never heard of such a case, though such
a variation is perhaps the most likely of any to occur in a state of
nature, and to be inherited, inasmuch as all domesticated birds present
races with a tuft or with reversed feathers on their heads. I have
sometimes thought that the progenitor of the whole class must have been
a crested animal.

Do you make any progress with your journal of travels? I am the more
anxious that you should do so as I have lately read with much interest
some papers by you on the ourang-outan, etc., in the "Annals," of which
I have lately been reading the later volumes. I have always thought that
journals of this nature do considerable good by advancing the taste for
Natural History: I know in my own case that nothing ever stimulated my
zeal so much as reading Humboldt's "Personal Narrative." I have not yet
received the last part of the "Linnean Transactions," but your paper
(187/2. Probably on the variability and distribution of the butterflies
of the Malayan region: "Linn. Soc. Trans." XXV., 1866.) at present will
be rather beyond my strength, for though somewhat better, I can as yet
do hardly anything but lie on the sofa and be read aloud to. By the
way, have you read Tylor and Lecky? (187/3. Tylor, "Early History of
Mankind;" Lecky's "Rationalism.") Both these books have interested me
much. I suppose you have read Lubbock. (187/4. Lubbock, "Prehistoric
Times," page 479: "...the theory of Natural Selection, which with
characteristic unselfishness he ascribes unreservedly to Mr. Darwin.")
In the last chapter there is a note about you in which I most cordially
concur. I see you were at the British Association but I have heard
nothing of it except what I have picked up in the "Reader." I have heard
a rumour that the "Reader" is sold to the Anthropological Society. If
you do not begrudge the trouble of another note (for my sole channel of
news through Hooker is closed by his illness) I should much like to hear
whether the "Reader" is thus sold. I should be very sorry for it, as the
paper would thus become sectional in its tendency. If you write, tell
me what you are doing yourself. The only news which I have about the
"Origin" is that Fritz Muller published a few months ago a remarkable
book (187/5. "Fur Darwin.") in its favour, and secondly that a second
French edition is just coming out.

LETTER 188. TO F. MULLER. Down, January 11th [1866].

I received your interesting letter of November 5th some little time ago,
and despatched immediately a copy of my "Journal of Researches." I
fear you will think me troublesome in my offer; but have you the second
German edition of the "Origin?" which is a translation, with additions,
of the third English edition, and is, I think, considerably improved
compared with the first edition. I have some spare copies which are of
no use to me, and it would be a pleasure to me to send you one, if it
would be of any use to you. You would never require to re-read the book,
but you might wish to refer to some passage. I am particularly obliged
for your photograph, for one likes to have a picture in one's mind of
any one about whom one is interested. I have received and read with
interest your paper on the sponge with horny spicula. (188/1. "Ueber
Darwinella aurea, einen Schwamm mit sternformigen Hornnadeln."--"Archiv.
Mikrosk. Anat." I., page 57, 1866.) Owing to ill-health, and being
busy when formerly well, I have for some years neglected periodical
scientific literature, and have lately been reading up, and have thus
read translations of several of your papers; amongst which I have been
particularly glad to read and see the drawings of the metamorphoses
of Peneus. (188/2. "On the Metamorphoses of the Prawns," by Dr. Fritz
Muller.--"Ann. Mag. Nat. Hist." Volume XIV., page 104 (with plate),
1864. Translated by W.S. Dallas from "Wiegmann's Archiv," 1863 (see also
"Facts and Arguments for Darwin," passim, translated by W.S. Dallas:
London, 1869).) This seems to me the most interesting discovery in
embryology which has been made for years.

I am much obliged to you for telling me a little of your plans for the
future; what a strange, but to my taste interesting life you will lead
when you retire to your estate on the Itajahy!

You refer in your letter to the facts which Agassiz is collecting,
against our views, on the Amazons. Though he has done so much for
science, he seems to me so wild and paradoxical in all his views that I
cannot regard his opinions as of any value.

LETTER 189. TO A.R. WALLACE. Down, January 22nd, 1866.

I thank you for your paper on pigeons (189/1. "On the Pigeons of the
Malay Archipelago" (The "Ibis," October, 1865). Mr. Wallace points out
(page 366) that "the most striking superabundance of pigeons, as well
as of parrots, is confined to the Australo-Malayan sub-region in
which...the forest-haunting and fruit-eating mammals, such as monkeys
and squirrels, are totally absent." He points out also that monkeys are
"exceedingly destructive to eggs and young birds."), which interested
me, as everything that you write does. Who would ever have dreamed that
monkeys influenced the distribution of pigeons and parrots! But I have
had a still higher satisfaction, for I finished your paper yesterday in
the "Linnean Transactions." (189/2. "Linn. Soc. Trans." XXV.: a paper
on the geographical distribution and variability of the Malayan
Papilionidae.) It is admirably done. I cannot conceive that the most
firm believer in species could read it without being staggered. Such
papers will make many more converts among
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