Dear Father

Many thanks for yr letter. I am awfully glad about the book £630 is a good lot I suppose²   I havn’t read the second vol yet, & I havn’t looked about Pouters³ mistake but I shall have more time when I have done dissecting— Pryor says he is sure he can sit on Mivart severely, but I dont know what particular seats he is going to take—⁴ I am glad you flummoxed Mivart;⁵ he is rather absurd about imitations, he cannot see how the rough beginnings & the finishings could come; an animal might start a rough likeness as a defence against one kind of enemy, such as birds perching on trees & dashing off after butterflies— the likeness might be polished up to any extent by the effects of another kind of enemy   About the kangaroos larynx he forgets that marsupials have probably come from Monotremata, in which the milk is made to ooze out by punching the mama’s stomach; when the muscle to the gland began to be developed, it would be feeble & only cause an oozing probably, & with a feeble current of milk, a little sticking up of the larynx wd be of use.⁶ I cant think how he can say that the ancestors of all mammals must have been marsupials or else the progen of marsupials & other mammals must have been an animal having in most respects the ordinary mammalian charactr which certainly an Onithorhynchus has not—⁷ I havnt read the Athenæum,⁸ which I hear is great book

Salvin is staying with JW, he is a very jolly man⁹

Yrs affectionately | FD