D^r Darwin

Salwyn & his fellow traveller called today, very full of having heard from you, & quite bent upon Gallapagos.² I have tonight written to Consul at Guayaquil for information—³ They talk of hiring a schooner & spending 10 months (I advise them to go on to Sandwich Islands), next March.

Thanks for A Grays letter.—⁴ I quite agree with you that Lyell has in no way taken position of judge, but of advocate—⁵ he is far too conscious of the merits of your case & too prudent of his own future fame not to have taken a side— Had he taken Judges seat I never should have blamed him—the fact is he is half-hearted but whole-headed— Do ask Gray to reconsider— I asked Bentham, who is wholly of our opinion— I think Bentham will make a very interesting discussion for the Linnæan anniversary on the methods of your adversaries.⁶

Your paper in Linn. Journal reads excellently well.⁷

I hope to get loan of copy of squib & will copy it.⁸ Busk & Mrs B. have credit of it;⁹ but I cannot believe it theirs, it is too clever & too impartial.

Bates book is charming—but I can see some ground for saying that it is biassed by Darwinism¹⁰   It is a little evident to me, here & there, that his Darwinistic explanations of what he sees &c are after-thoughts— It is too bad to say that his facts are therefore twisted—but he says here & there, or leaves the impression of saying, in 1849, “We did so & so which is of such importance “au point de vue” of N. Selection or of Variation & N & S.” whereas he never knew aught of these till 1859—¹¹ I express my meaning very clumsily—

I am very anxious to hear what you can say of divergence of leaves, PS. I was thinking of divergence of species— You mean Phyllotaxis¹²   Oliver asks if you have seen Nageli on relations of leaves to vascular bundles of stem.¹³ I have often tried to see something in it, but never could get the remotest glimpse & have been greatly disappointed in M^cCosh’s & other books on the subject.¹⁴ I remember no paper by A Gray¹⁵

I am groaning over Cameroons.¹⁶ Mann has been again (4^th time) up F. Po Peak, but got nothing new. he has been at deaths door 3 times & is on his way home.¹⁷ We only found out last week that he was engaged to a very nice girl at Kew!¹⁸

I have perfect faith in your doctrine of absence of competition favoring retention of continental forms on Islands, though how the devil one is to reconcile that with the extraordinary modification of other continental forms on same Islands passes my comprehension.¹⁹ Except what you won’t admit:— that they were common to continent & Island before disjunction of latter & the modification is of the Continental forms, the insular being the old original type— This is turning the tables on you with a vengeance but I will work it out in spite of you. Go to weep & howl²⁰

The Ferns of Ascencion & S^t Helena are totally difft. from one another & from Cameroons, this is, or ought to be, a deathblow to all aerial migration, for ferns are notoriously widely dispersed & dispersable.— I wish I had never wasted a thought on the stupid subject

I feel quite sick & sorry when I think over this squabble of Falconer & Lyell²¹   I am determined to bring them together if possible, & appeal to the magnanimity of each to allow me to do so.

I must send you a flower of Clianthus Dampieri, in which the pollen falls out of anthers into boatshaped pendulous keel, & rolls along the Kelson down towards the stigma—but it takes a Darwinian waggle of the keel to get it on stigma I expect.²²

I shall be anxious to hear how the hot house plants get on.²³

I quite expect that Bentham will speak out by & bye, & Oliver I am sure is far gone, but is bothered with external conditions.²⁴

J. E. Gray spent $\frac{3}{4}$ hours abusing Bates to me the other day.—²⁵ I let him go on till he had made Bates out to be morally intellectually & physically, unutterably base & then I pitched into him hot & strong & made him eat all his assertions except that he had not collected 8000 new species (which I believe he has, but care nothing about.)—²⁶ He began by saying he had spent all his time in idleness & licentiousness amongst the natives on the Amazons & half an hour afterwards told me that it was the B.M. that had supported him, all the 11 years, paying him £300–400 a year for the pick of his collections!!²⁷ I think I made him heartily ashamed of himself. I never heard such a slanderer in my whole life. I suppose it is because he so overdoes it that he makes so few real enemies thereby.

Bates is in a very difficult position & I am urging him to keep before the world in publishing & especially to take care not to quarrell with or show contempt for his brother Entomologists;²⁸ & to take their sneers & suspicions in perfect good part.— Poor fellow he dined with me the other day, & 2 days after wrote me that he had a hornets nest about his ears headed by J. E. Gray, who attacked him at the B.M.

I am certain if he only goes on quietly & goodnaturedly working hard & publishing such papers as he has in 3 years he will be the first living philosophical Entomologist & all the rest will be at his feet if he makes no enemies amongst them.

This is a cruel long letter to make you read—so I’ve done.

Ever yours affect | J D Hooker