Volume I Part 51 (1/2)

Down, November 4th [1856].

I thank you more cordially than you will think probable for your note.

Your verdict has been a great relief. On my honour I had no idea whether or not you would say it was (and I knew you would say it very kindly) so bad, that you would have begged me to have burnt the whole. To my own mind my MS. relieved me of some few difficulties, and the difficulties seemed to me pretty fairly stated; but I had become so bewildered with conflicting facts--evidence, reasoning and opinions--that I felt to myself that I had lost all judgment. Your general verdict is incomparably more favourable than I had antic.i.p.ated.

Very many thanks for your invitation. I had made up my mind, on my poor wife's account, not to come up to next Phil. Club; but I am so much tempted by your invitation, and my poor dear wife is so good-natured about it, that I think I shall not resist--i.e., if she does not get worse. I would come to dinner at about same time as before, if that would suit you, and I do not hear to the contrary; and would go away by the early train--i.e., about 9 o'clock. I find my present work tries me a good deal, and sets my heart palpitating, so I must be careful. But I should so much like to see Henslow, and likewise meet Lindley if the fates will permit. You will see whether there will be time for any criticism in detail on my MS. before dinner: not that I am in the least hurry, for it will be months before I come again to Geographical Distribution; only I am afraid of your forgetting any remarks.

I do not know whether my very trifling observations on means of distribution are worth your reading, but it amuses me to tell them.

The seeds which the eagle had in [its] stomach for eighteen hours looked so fresh that I would have bet five to one that they would all have grown; but some kinds were ALL killed, and two oats, one canary-seed, one clover, and one beet alone came up! Now I should have not cared swearing that the beet would not have been killed, and I should have fully expected that the clover would have been. These seeds, however, were kept for three days in moist pellets, damp with gastric juice, after being ejected, which would have helped to have injured them.

Lately I have been looking, during a few walks, at excrement of small birds. I have found six kinds of seeds, which is more than I expected.

Lastly, I have had a partridge with twenty-two grains of dry earth on one foot, and to my surprise a pebble as big as a tare seed; and I now understand how this is possible, for the bird scratches itself, [and the] little plumous feathers make a sort of very tenacious plaister.

Think of the millions of migratory quails (332/2. See ”Origin,” Edition I., page 363, where the millions of migrating quails occur again.), and it would be strange if some plants have not been transported across good arms of the sea.

Talking of this, I have just read your curious Raoul Island paper.

(332/3. ”Linn. Soc. Journal.” I., 1857.) This looks more like a case of continuous land, or perhaps of several intervening, now lost, islands than any (according to my heterodox notions) I have yet seen. The concordance of the vegetation seems so complete with New Zealand, and with that land alone.

I have read Salter's paper and can hardly stomach it. I wonder whether the lighters were ever used to carry grain and hay to s.h.i.+ps. (332/4.

Salter, ”Linn. Soc. Journal,” I., 1857, page 140, ”On the Vitality of Seeds after prolonged Immersion in the Sea.” It appears that in 1843 the mud was sc.r.a.ped from the bottom of the channels in Poole Harbour, and carried to sh.o.r.e in barges. On this mud a vegetation differing from that of the surrounding sh.o.r.e sprang up.)

Adios, my dear Hooker. I thank you most honestly for your a.s.sistance--a.s.sistance, by the way, now spread over some dozen years.

P.S.--Wednesday. I see from my wife's expression that she does not really much like my going, and therefore I must give up, of course, this pleasure.

If you should have anything to discuss about my MS., I see that I could get to you by about 12, and then could return by the 2.19 o'clock train, and be home by 5.30 o'clock, and thus I should get two hours' talk. But it would be a considerable exertion for me, and I would not undertake it for mere pleasure's sake, but would very gladly for my book's sake.

LETTER 333. J.D. HOOKER TO CHARLES DARWIN. November 9th, 1856.

I have finished the reading of your MS., and have been very much delighted and instructed. Your case is a most strong one, and gives me a much higher idea of change than I had previously entertained; and though, as you know, never very stubborn about unalterability of specific type, I never felt so shaky about species before.

The first half you will be able to put more clearly when you polish up.

I have in several cases made pencil alterations in details as to words, etc., to enable myself to follow better,--some of it is rather stiff reading. I have a page or two of notes for discussion, many of which were answered, as I got further on with the MS., more or less fully.

Your doctrine of the cooling of the Tropics is a startling one, when carried to the length of supporting plants of cold temperate regions; and I must confess that, much as I should like it, I can hardly stomach keeping the tropical genera alive in so very cool a greenhouse [pencil note by C.D., ”Not so very cool, but northern ones could range further south if not opposed”]. Still I must confess that all your arguments pro may be much stronger put than you have. I am more reconciled to iceberg transport than I was, the more especially as I will give you any length of time to keep vitality in ice, and more than that, will let you transport roots that way also.

(333/1. The above letter was pinned to the following note by Mr.

Darwin.)

In answer to this show from similarity of American, and European and Alpine-Arctic plants, that they have travelled enormously without any change.

As sub-arctic, temperate and tropical are all slowly marching toward the equator, the tropical will be first checked and distressed, similarly (333/2. Almost illegible.) the temperate will invade...; after the temperate can [not] advance or do not wish to advance further the arctics will be checked and will invade. The temperates will have been far longer in Tropics than sub-arctics. The sub-arctics will first have to cross temperate [zone] and then Tropics. They would penetrate among strangers, just like the many naturalised plants brought by man, from some unknown advantage. But more, for nearly all have chance of doing so.

(333/3. The point of view is more clearly given in the following letters.)

LETTER 334. TO J.D. HOOKER. Down, November 15th [1856].

I shall not consider all your notes on my MS. for some weeks, till I have done with crossing; but I have not been able to stop myself meditating on your powerful objection to the mundane cold period (334/1.