Volume I Part 21 (1/2)
About sudden jumps: I have no objection to them--they would aid me in some cases. All I can say is, that I went into the subject, and found no evidence to make me believe in jumps; and a good deal pointing in the other direction. You will find it difficult (page 14 of your letter) to make a marked line of separation between fertile and infertile crosses.
I do not see how the apparently sudden change (for the suddenness of change in a chrysalis is of course largely only apparent) in larvae during their development throws any light on the subject.
I wish I could have made this letter better worth sending to you. I have had it copied to save you at least the intolerable trouble of reading my bad handwriting. Again I thank you for your great liberality and kindness in sending me your criticisms, and I heartily wish we were a little nearer in accord; but we must remain content to be as wide asunder as the poles, but without, thank G.o.d, any malice or other ill-feeling.
LETTER 111. TO T.H. HUXLEY.
(111/1. Dr. Asa Gray's articles in the ”Atlantic Monthly,” July, August, and October, 1860, were published in England as a pamphlet, and form Chapter III. in his ”Darwiniana” (1876). See ”Life and Letters,” II., page 338. The article referred to in the present letter is that in the August number.)
Down, September 10th [1860].
I send by this post a review by Asa Gray, so good that I should like you to see it; I must beg for its return. I want to ask, also, your opinion about getting it reprinted in England. I thought of sending it to the Editor of the ”Annals and Mag. of Nat. Hist.” in which two hostile reviews have appeared (although I suppose the ”Annals” have a very poor circulation), and asking them in the spirit of fair play to print this, with Asa Gray's name, which I will take the responsibility of adding.
Also, as it is long, I would offer to pay expenses.
It is very good, in addition, as bringing in Pictet so largely.
(111/2. Pictet (1809-72) wrote a ”perfectly fair” review opposed to the ”Origin.” See ”Life and Letters,” II., page 297.) Tell me briefly what you think.
What an astonis.h.i.+ng expedition this is of Hooker's to Syria! G.o.d knows whether it is wise.
How are you and all yours? I hope you are not working too hard. For Heaven's sake, think that you may become such a beast as I am. How goes on the ”Nat. Hist. Review?” Talking of reviews, I d.a.m.ned with a good grace the review in the ”Athenaeum” (111/3. Review of ”The Glaciers of the Alps” (”Athenaeum,” September 1, 1860, page 280).) on Tyndall with a mean, scurvy allusion to you. It is disgraceful about Tyndall,--in fact, doubting his veracity.
I am very tired, and hate nearly the whole world. So good-night, and take care of your digestion, which means brain.
LETTER 112. TO C. LYELL. 15, Marine Parade, Eastbourne, 26th [September 1860].
It has just occurred to me that I took no notice of your questions on extinction in St. Helena. I am nearly sure that Hooker has information on the extinction of plants (112/1. ”Principles of Geology,” Volume II.
(Edition X., 1868), page 453. Facts are quoted from Hooker ill.u.s.trating the extermination of plants in St. Helena.), but I cannot remember where I have seen it. One may confidently a.s.sume that many insects were exterminated.
By the way, I heard lately from Wollaston, who told me that he had just received eminently Madeira and Canary Island insect forms from the Cape of Good Hope, to which trifling distance, if he is logical, he will have to extend his Atlantis! I have just received your letter, and am very much pleased that you approve. But I am utterly disgusted and ashamed about the dingo. I cannot think how I could have misunderstood the paper so grossly. I hope I have not blundered likewise in its co-existence with extinct species: what horrid blundering! I am grieved to hear that you think I must work in the notes in the text; but you are so much better a judge that I will obey. I am sorry that you had the trouble of returning the Dog MS., which I suppose I shall receive to-morrow.
I mean to give good woodcuts of all the chief races of pigeons. (112/2.
”The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication,” 1868.)
Except the C. oenas (112/3. The Columba oenas of Europe roosts on trees and builds its nest in holes, either in trees or the ground (”Var.
of Animals,” Volume I., page 183).) (which is partly, indeed almost entirely, a wood pigeon), there is no other rock pigeon with which our domestic pigeon would cross--that is, if several exceedingly close geographical races of C. livia, which hardly any ornithologist looks at as true species, be all grouped under C. livia. (112/4. Columba livia, the Rock-pigeon. ”We may conclude with confidence that all the domestic races, notwithstanding their great amount of difference, are descended from the Columba livia, including under this name certain wild races”
(op. cit., Volume I., page 223).)
I am writing higgledy-piggledy, as I re-read your letter. I thought that my letter had been much wilder than yours. I quite feel the comfort of writing when one may ”alter one's speculations the day after.” It is beyond my knowledge to weigh ranks of birds and monotremes; in the respiratory and circulatory system and muscular energy I believe birds are ahead of all mammals.
I knew that you must have known about New Guinea; but in writing to you I never make myself civil!
After treating some half-dozen or dozen domestic animals in the same manner as I treat dogs, I intended to have a chapter of conclusions.
But Heaven knows when I shall finish: I get on very slowly. You would be surprised how long it took me to pick out what seemed useful about dogs out of mult.i.tudes of details.
I see the force of your remark about more isolated races of man in old times, and therefore more in number. It seems to me difficult to weigh probabilities. Perhaps so, if you refer to very slight differences in the races: to make great differences much time would be required, and then, even at the earliest period I should have expected one race to have spread, conquered, and exterminated the others.
With respect to Falconer's series of Elephants (112/5. In 1837 Dr.
Falconer and Sir Proby Cautley collected a large number of fossil remains from the Siwalik Hills. Falconer and Cautley, ”Fauna Antiqua Sivalensis,” 1845-49.), I think the case could be answered better than I have done in the ”Origin,” page 334. (112/6. ”Origin of Species,”