My dear Hooker

I have been an ungrateful dog for not having answered your letter sooner, but I have been so hard at work correcting proofs, together with some unwellness, that I have not had one quarter of an hour to spare. I finally corrected the first $\frac{1}{3}$ of the old volume, which will appear on the 1^st of July: I hope & think I have somewhat improved it.

Very many thanks for your remarks, some of them came too late to make me put some of my remarks more cautiously; I feel, however, still inclined to abide by my evaporation notion to account for the clouds of steam, which rise from the wooded Valleys after rain.¹ Again I am so obstinate that I sh^d require very good evidence to make me believe that there are two species of Polybirus in the Falkland Is^ds:² Do the Gauchos there admit it?. Much as I talked to them, they never alluded to such a fact. In the Zoology I have discussed the sexual & immature plumages which differ much.³

I return the enclosed agreeable letter with many thanks; I am extremely glad of the plants collected at St. Paul’s & shall be particularly curious, whenever they arrive to hear what they are: I dined the other day at Sir J. Lubbock & met R. Brown & we had much laudatory talk about you: he spoke very nicely about your motives in now going to Edinburgh.— He did not seem to know & was much surprised at what I stated (I believe correctly) on the close relation between the Kerguelen & T. del. Fuego floras. Forbes is doing apparently very good work about the introduction & distribution of plants: he has forestalled me, in what I had hoped w^d have been an interesting discussion, viz on the relation between the present alpine & Arctic floras, with connection to the last change of climate from Arctic to temperate, when the then arctic lowland plants must have been driven up the mountains.⁴

I am much pleased to hear of the pleasant reception, you received at Edinburgh: I hope your impressions will continue agreeable: my associations with auld Reekie⁵ are very friendly. Do you ever see D^r. Coldstream?⁶ if you do, w^d you give him my kind remembrances.— You ask about Amber, I believe all the species are extinct, ie without the amber has been doctored) & certainly the greater number are.—

If you have any other corrections ready will you send them soon; for I shall go to press with 2^nd. Part, in less than a week.— I have been so busy, that I have not yet begun d’Urville & have read only 1^st. Chapt of Canary Is^d!⁷ — I am most particularly obliged to you for having lent me the latter; for I know not where else I c^d. have ever borrowed it.— There is the Kosmos to read⁸ & Lyell’s Travels in N. America:⁹ it is awful to think of how much there is to read.—

What makes H. Watson a renegade? I had a talk with Capt. Beaufort the other day & he charged me to keep a book & enter anything which occurred to me, which deserved examination or collection in any part of the world, & he w^d sooner or later get it in the instructions to some ship.— If anything occurs to you, let me hear, for in the course of a month or two, I must write out something: I mean to urge collections of all kinds on any isolated isl^ds.— I suspect that there are several in the northern half of the Pacific, which have never been visited by a collector.— This is a dull untidy letter.

Farewell | Ever yours | C. Darwin

As you care so much for insular Floras, are you aware that I col⁠⟨⁠lected⁠⟩⁠ all in flower on the Abrolhos isl^ds. but they are very near the coast of Brazil: nevertheless I think, they ought to be just looked at, under a geographical point of view.—