Dear M^r. Darwin

I have to thank you very much for your note. Before I received it I had made up my mind that Kowalowsky had much greater claims than Semper whose name along with that of Rudolph Leuckart was before us at the last meeting of Council.¹ Had I remembered Kowalewsky at the time I should certainly have brought him forward instead of Semper, but some how I overlooked him.

There is another name however which, as I think you will admit, can scarcely be passed by. Indeed it was because I was under the belief that it had alread been on our list that I did not mention it when we were discussing the claims of foreign workers. I mean that of Gegenbaur.² Gegenbaur assuredly comes into the first class of workers and whether by his original researches, both among vertebrate and invertebrate animals, or by his exposition of a philosophic Zoology in the present stand point, ought before now to have been offered the honor of our foreign membership. I have since the last meeting suffered his name instead of Semper’s to be voted for at the next Council. After Gegenbaur and Leuckart I should certainly place Kowalewsky and I should hope that on the occasion of the next vacancy he may be chosen.³

Leuckart is now an old man; This honor ought to have been long ago conferred on him and ought not to be deferred to an opportunity which may never occur. Gegenbaur though much younger than Leuckart has been very much longer at his work than Kowalewsky and the toil and heat of the day which he has borne ought not to go for nothing.⁴

I quite agree with you that where we can recognise the claims of a young worker by offering him an honor like this, provided it can be done without injustice to the older men, age ought not to be taken into consideration; but at the same time we cannot overlook the enormous advantage which the younger investigators have over their predecessors by the work which those very predecessors have placed at their disposal; and of this work I have no hesitation in placing your own among the most valuable aids to research and the surest clue to the discovery of the most important morphological and physiological laws which have of late years rewarded the researches of our younger collaborateurs.

Most truly yours | Geo. J. Allman