Dear Sir,

About a year since you did me the honour to accept and read a little book of mine on Physiological Aesthetics.² I now venture to send you a MS. paper “On the Colouration of Flowers and Fruits”, which seems to me to fill up a small gap in that portion of your great theory which relates to those structures.³ We are often compelled to say, in speaking of Natural Selection to non-believers, “If such and such a tendency were to arise, it would be selected on such and such grounds”. It has always appeared to me highly desirable that these ifs should, where possible, be got rid of, and that evolutionists should rather try to show that in each case the pre-supposed tendency is, as a matter of fact, apt to show itself from time to time in the particular organ or organism involved. This I have tried to do, in the accompanying paper, for the specific case of colour in flowers and fruits. The reasons which have induced me to send you the paper are these:— I wrote it with some idea that it might be “communicated” to the Linnæan Society; but on sending it to a friend who is a fellow, he thought it not quite the sort of thing for that purpose.⁴ I am anxious, however, in spite of his opinion, that you should look at it (if you can kindly spare a little of your valuable time—whose worth I fully appreciate—for the purpose), because I think the subject-matter would probably prove of interest to you. It is not very long, and I have tried to write as legibly as possible, so as to save unnecessary trouble.

I may add that the last two paragraphs contain a very brief résumé of a theory with regard to the development of colour-perception in animals, upon which I have been engaged for several months, and which I purpose working up finally into a volume on the “Colour Sense, its Origin and Development.”⁵ In the course of my collection of instances upon that question, the idea here worked out first occurred to me, and seemed worth following up in the form of a short paper.

With many apologies for trespassing upon your notice, I am, | Yours very faithfully, | Grant Allen.