More Letters of Charles Darwin Volume I [69]
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.
CHAPTER 1.III.--Evolution, 1859-1863.
LETTER 71. TO A.R. WALLACE. Down, April 6th, 1859.
I this morning received your pleasant and friendly note of November 30th. The first part of my MS. is in Murray's hands to see if he likes to publish it. There is no preface, but a short introduction, which must be read by every one who reads my book. The second paragraph in the introduction (71/1. "Origin of Species," Edition I., 1859, pages 1 and 2.) I have had copied verbatim from my foul copy, and you will, I hope, think that I have fairly noticed your paper in the "Linn. Journal." (71/2. "On the Tendency of Species to form Varieties, and on the Perpetuation of Varieties and Species by Natural Means of Selection." By Charles Darwin and Alfred Russell Wallace. Communicated by Sir Charles Lyell and J.D. Hooker. "Journ. Linn. Soc." Volume III., page 45, 1859. (Read July 1st, 1858.)) You must remember that I am now publishing only an abstract, and I give no references. I shall, of course, allude to your paper on distribution (71/3. "On the Law which has regulated the Introduction of New Species" (A.R. Wallace). "Ann. Mag. Nat. Hist." Volume XVI., page 184, 1855. The law alluded to is thus stated by Wallace: "Every species has come into existence coincident both in space and time with a pre-existing closely allied species" (loc. cit., page 186).); and I have added that I know from correspondence