My dear Sir,

I have just discovered that my note to you on the receipt of your two valuable books written in January, was wrongly directed and that therefore in all probability you have never received the expression of my thanks. I need hardly say how much I value so kind and unexpected a present.¹

Unfortunately my duties have prevented my working at the variation in bones which you suggested last winter: but I hope shortly to begin it.² In working at Felis spelæa, the variation in recent leonine skeletons has been forcibly impressed on my mind. That animal seems to me identical with the beast that attacked Zerxes camels, and was so familiar to the eyes of Aristotle.³

There is one thing that has astonished me very greatly during the last few weeks. The Miocene cervidæ of Europe are most closely allied to the Indian, or rather Southern Asiatic. Two species Muntjac and Rusa are almost identical.⁴ It seems therefore very probable that the Miocene Cervidæ of Europe have taken refuge in Southern Asia and are still living there modified for the most part, by the vast lapse of time since their disappearance from Europe.

As far as I can make out the Miocene Europæan Fauna may be relegated either to Africa or Southern Asia: that of Southern Europe to the former that of Northern to the latter. The so called Miocenes of the Sevalik hills represent a period of time equal to that which has elapsed since the beginning of the Miocene of Europe down to the close of the Quaternary period, the admixture of existing Indian species putting out of court the current idea of the formation being equivalent to our Miocene.⁵ You will I hope endure this gossip which somehow I cannot keep out of this note.

I am | My dear Sir | Yours truly | W. Boyd Dawkins

Charles Darwin Esq. F.R.S.