Lecture I Should Certainly Have Quoted the Cases You Give (in a Note, P.

431) of plants extending along the Andes from California to Peru and Chile, and vice versa. Whatever identity there is in our views was therefore arrived at independently, and it was an oversight on my part not referring to your views, partly due to your not having made them a more prominent feature of your very interesting and instructive lecture. Working as I do at home, I am obliged to get my facts from the few books I can get together; and I only attempted to deal with these great botanical questions because the facts seemed sufficiently broad and definite not to be much affected by errors of detail or recent additions to our knowledge, and because the view which I took of the past changes in Australia and New Zealand seemed calculated to throw so much light upon them. Without such splendid summaries of the relations of the Southern floras as are given in Sir J. Hooker's Introductions, I should not have touched the subject at all; and I venture to hope that you or some of your colleagues will give us other such summaries, brought down to the present date, of other important floras--as, for example, those of South Africa and South Temperate America.

Many thanks for additional peculiar British plants. When I hear what Mr. Mitten has to say about the mosses, etc., I should like to send a corrected list to Nature, which I shall ask you to be so good as to give a final look over.--Believe me yours very faithfully,

ALFRED R. WALLACE.

P.S.--Mr. Darwin strongly objects to my view of the migration of plants along mountain-ranges, rather than along lowlands during cold periods. This latter view seems to me as difficult and inadequate as mine does to him.--A.R.W.

* * * * *

Wallace was in frequent correspondence with Professor Raphael Meldola, the eminent chemist, a friend both of Darwin and of Wallace, a student of Evolution, and a stout defender of Darwinism. I received from him much help and advice in connection with this work, and had he lived until its completion--he died, suddenly, in 1914--my indebtedness to him would have been even greater.

The following letter to Meldola refers to a suggestion that the white colour of the undersides of animals might have been developed by selection through the physical advantage gained from the protection of the vital parts by a lighter colour and therefore by a surface of less radiative activity. The idea was that there would be less loss of animal heat through such a white coating. We were at that time unaware of Thayer's demonstration of the value of such colouring for the purposes of concealment among environment. Wallace accepted Thayer's view at once when it was subsequently put forward; as do most naturalists at the present time.

TO PROF. MELDOLA

Frith Hill, Godalming. April 8, 1885.

My dear Meldola,--Your letter in Nature last week "riz my dander," as the Yankees say, and, for once in a way, we find ourselves deadly enemies prepared for mortal combat, armed with steel (pens) and prepared to shed any amount of our own--ink. Consequently I rushed into the fray with a letter to Nature intended to show that you are as wrong (as wicked) as are the Russians in Afghanistan. Having, however, the most perfect confidence that the battle will soon be over,... --Yours very faithfully,

ALFRED R. WALLACE.

* * * * *

The following letter refers to the theory of physiological selection which had recently been propounded by Romanes, and which Prof. Meldola had criticised in Nature, xxxix. 384.

TO PROF. MELDOLA

Frith Hill, Godalming. August 28, 1886.

My dear Meldola,--I have just read your reply to Romanes in Nature, and so far as your view goes I agree, but it does not go far enough. Professor Newton has called my attention to a passage in Belt's "Nicaragua," pp. 207-8, in which he puts forth very clearly exactly your view. I find I had noted the explanation as insufficient, and I hear that in Darwin's copy there is "No! No!" against it. It seems, however, to me to summarise all that is of the slightest value in Romanes' wordy paper. I have asked Newton (to whom I had lent it) to forward to you at Birmingham a proof of my paper in the Fortnightly, and I shall be much obliged if you will read it carefully, and, if you can, "hold a brief" for me at the British Association in this matter. You will see that a considerable part of my paper is devoted to a demonstration of the fallacy of that part of "Romanes" which declares species to be distinguished generally by useless characters, and also that "simultaneous variations" do not usually occur.

On the question of sterility, which, as you well observe, is the core of the question, I think I show that it could not work in the way Romanes puts it. The objection to Belt's and your view is, also, that it would not work unless the "sterility variation" was correlated with the "useful variation." You assume, I think, this correlation, when you speak of two of your varieties, B. and K., being less fertile with the parent form. Without correlation they could not be so, only some few of them. Romanes always speaks of his physiological variations as being independent, "primary," in which case, as I show, they could hardly ever survive. At the end of my paper I show a correlation which is probably general and sufficient.

In criticising Romanes, however, at the British Association, I want to call your special attention to a point I have hardly made clear enough in my paper. Romanes always speaks of the "physiological variety" as if it were like any other simple variety, and could as easily (he says more easily) be increased. Whereas it is really complex, requiring a remarkable correlation between different sets of individuals which he never recognises. To illustrate what I mean, let me suppose a case. Let there occur in a species three individual physiological varieties--A, B and C--each being infertile with the bulk of the species, but quite fertile with some small part of it. Let A, for example, be fertile with X, Y and Z. Now I maintain it to be in the highest degree improbable that B, a quite distinct individual, with distinct parents originating in a distinct locality, and perhaps with a very different constitution, merely because it also is sterile with the bulk of the species, should be fertile with the very same individuals, X, Y, Z, that A is fertile with. It seems to me to be at least 100 to 1 that it will be fertile with some other quite distinct set of individuals. And so with C, and any other similar variety. I express this by saying that each has its "sexual complements," and that the complements of the one are almost sure not to be the complements of the other. Hence it follows that A, B, C, though differing in the same character of general infertility with the bulk of the species, will really be three distinct varieties physiologically, and can in no way unite to form a single physiological variety. This enormous difficulty Romanes apparently never sees, but argues as if all individuals that are infertile with the bulk of the species must be or usually are fertile with the same set of individuals or with each other. This I call a monstrous assumption, for which not a particle of evidence exists. Take this in conjunction with my argument from the severity of the struggle for existence and the extreme improbability of the respective "sexual complements" coming together at the right time, and I think Romanes' ponderous paper is disposed of.

I wrote my paper, however, quite as much to expose the great presumption and ignorance of Romanes in declaring that Natural Selection is not a theory of the origin of species--as it is calculated to do much harm. See, for instance, the way the Duke of Argyll jumped at it like a trout at a fly!--Yours very faithfully,

ALFRED R. WALLACE.

* * * * *

The earlier part of the next letter refers to "The Experimental Proof of the Protective Value of Colour and Markings in Insects in reference to their Vertebrate Enemies," in the Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London, 1887, p. 191.

TO PROF. POULTON

Frith Hill, Godalming. October 20, 1887.

My dear Poulton,--It is very interesting to me to see how very generally the facts are in accordance with theory, and I am only surprised that the exceptions and irregularities are not more numerous than they are found to be. The only difficult case, that of D. euphorbiæ, is due probably to incomplete knowledge. Are lizards and sea-birds the only, or even the chief, possible enemies of the species? They evidently do not prevent its coming to maturity in considerable abundance, and it is therefore no doubt preserved from its chief enemies during its various stages of growth.

The only point on which I differ from you--as you know--is your acceptance, as proved, of the theory of sexual colour selection, and your speaking of insects as having a sense of "the beautiful" in colour, as if that were a known fact. But that is a wide question, requiring full discussion.--Yours very faithfully,

ALFRED R. WALLACE.

* * * * *

TO SIR FRANCIS DARWIN

Frith Hill, Godalming. November 20, 1887.

Dear Mr. Darwin,--Many thanks for the copy of your father's "Life and Letters," which I shall read with very great interest (as will all the world). I was not aware before that your father had been so distressed--or rather disturbed--by my sending him my essay from Ternate, and I am very glad to feel that his exaggerated sense of honour was quite needless so far as I was concerned, and that the incident did not in any way disturb our friendly relations. I always felt, and feel still, that people generally give me far too much credit for my mere sketch of the theory--so very small an affair as compared with the vast foundation of fact and experiment on which your father worked.--Believe me yours very faithfully,

ALFRED R. WALLACE.

* * * * *

TO MRS. FISHER (née BUCKLEY)

Frith Hill, Godalming. February 16, 1888.

My dear Mrs. Fisher,--I know nothing of the physiology of ferns and mosses, but as a matter of fact I think they will be found to increase and diminish together all over the world. Both like moist, equable climates and shade, and are therefore both so abundant in oceanic islands, and in the high regions of the tropics.

I am inclined to think that the reason ferns have persisted so long in competition with flowering plants is the fact that they thrive best in shade, flowers best in the light. In our woods and ravines the flowers are mostly spring flowers, which die away just as the foliage of the trees is coming out and the shade deepens; while ferns are often dormant at that time, but grow as the shade increases.

Why tree-ferns should not grow in cold countries I know not, except that it may be the winds are too violent and would tear all the fronds off before the spores were ripe. Everywhere they grow in ravines, or in forests where they are sheltered, even in the tropics. And they are not generally abundant, but grow in particular zones only. In all the Amazon valley I don't remember ever having seen a tree-fern....

I too am struggling with my "Popular Sketch of Darwinism," and am just now doing a chapter on the great "hybridity" question. I really think I shall be able to arrange the whole subject more intelligibly than Darwin did, and simplify it immensely by leaving out the endless discussion of collateral details and difficulties which in the "Origin of Species" confuse the main issue....

The most remarkable steps yet made in advance are, I think, the theory of Weismann of the continuity of the germ plasm, and its corollary that acquired modifications are never inherited! and Patrick Geddes's explanation of the laws of growth in plants on the theory of the antagonism of vegetative and reproductive growth....--Yours very sincerely,

ALFRED R. WALLACE.

* * * * *

TO PROF. MELDOLA

Frith Hill, Godalming. March 20, 1888.

My dear Meldola,--I have been working away at my hybridity chapters, and am almost disposed to cry "Eureka!" for I have got light on the problem. When almost in despair of making it clear that Natural Selection could act one way or the other, I luckily routed out an old paper that I wrote twenty years ago, giving a demonstration of the action of Natural Selection. It did not convince Darwin then, but it has convinced me now, and I think it can be proved that in some cases (and those I think most probable) Natural Selection will accumulate variations in infertility between incipient species. Many other causes of infertility co-operate, and I really think I have overcome the fundamental difficulties of the question and made it a good deal clearer than Darwin left it.... I think also it completely smashes up Romanes.--Yours faithfully,

ALFRED R. WALLACE.

* * * * *

The next letter relates to a question which Prof. Meldola raised as to whether, in view of the extreme importance of "divergence" (in the Darwinian sense) for the separation and maintenance of specific types, it might not be possible that sterility, when of advantage as a check to crossing, had in itself, as a physiological character, been brought about by Natural Selection, just as extreme fecundity had been brought about (by Natural Selection) in cases where such fecundity was of advantage.

TO PROF. MELDOLA

Frith Hill, Godalming. April 12, 1888.

My dear Meldola,--Many thanks for your criticism. It is a perfectly sound one as against my view being a complete explanation of the phenomena, but that I do not claim. And I do not see any chance of the required facts being forthcoming for many years to come. Experiments in the hybridisation of animals are so difficult and tedious that even Darwin never undertook any, and the only people who could and ought to have done it--the Zoological Society--will not. There is one point, however, I think you have overlooked. You urge the improbability of the required infertility being correlated with the particular variations which characterised each incipient species. But the whole point of my argument is, that the physiological adjustments producing fertility are so delicate that they are disturbed by almost any variation or change of conditions--except in the case of domestic animals, which have been domesticated because they are not subject to this disturbance. The whole first half of the chapter is to bring out this fact, which Darwin has dwelt upon, and it certainly does afford a foundation for the assumption that usually, and in some considerable number of individuals, variation in nature, accompanied by somewhat changed conditions of life, is accompanied by, and probably correlated with, some amount of infertility. No doubt this assumption wants proving, but in the meantime I am glad you think that, granting the assumption, I have shown that Natural Selection is able to accumulate sterility variations.

That is certainly a step in advance, and we cannot expect to do more than take very short theoretical steps till we get more facts to rest upon. If you should happen to come across any facts which seem to bear upon it, pray let me know. I can find none but those I have referred to.

I have just finished a chapter on male ornament and display, which I trust will help to clear up that point--Believe me yours very faithfully,

ALFRED R. WALLACE.

* * * * *

TO DR. W.B. HEMSLEY

Frith Hill, Godalming. August 26, 1888.

Dear Mr. Hemsley,--You are aware that Patrick Geddes proposes to exclude Natural Selection in the origination of thorns and spines, which he imputes to "diminishing vegetativeness" or "ebbing vitality of the species." It has occurred to me that insular floras should afford a test of the correctness of this view, since in the absence of mammalia the protection of spines would be less needed.

Your study of these floras will no doubt enable you to answer a few questions on this point. Spines and thorns are, I believe, usually abundant in arid regions of continents, especially in South Africa, where large herbivorous mammals abound. Now, if the long-continued presence of these mammals is a factor in the production of spines by Natural Selection, they should be wholly or comparatively absent in regions equally arid where there are no mammals. The Galapagos seem to be such a case--also perhaps some of the Sandwich Islands, and generally the extra-tropical volcanic islands. Also Australia comparatively, and the highlands of Madagascar.

Of course, the endemic species must be chiefly considered, as they have had time to be modified by the conditions. If you can give me the facts, or your general impression from your study of these floras, I shall be much obliged. I see, of course, many other objections to Geddes's theory, but this seems to offer a crucial test.--Believe me yours very truly,

ALFRED R. WALLACE.

* * * * *

TO DR. W.B. HEMSLEY

Frith Hill, Godalming. September 13, 1888.

Dear Mr. Hemsley,--Many thanks for your interesting letter. The facts you state seem quite to support the usual view, that thorns and spines have been developed as a protection against other animals. The few spiny plants in New Zealand may be for protection against land molluscs, of which there are several species as large as any in the tropics. Of course in Australia we should expect only a comparative scarcity of spines, as there are many herbivorous marsupials in the country.--Believe me yours very faithfully,

ALFRED R. WALLACE.

* * * * *

The next and several of the succeeding letters refer to the translations of Weismann's "Essays upon Heredity and Kindred Biological Problems" (Oxford, 1889), and to "Darwinism" (London, 1889).

TO PROF. POULTON

Frith Hill, Godalming. November 4, 1888.

My dear Mr. Poulton,--I returned you the two first of Weismann's essays, with a few notes and corrections in pencil on that on "Duration of Life." Looking over some old papers, I have just come across a short sketch on two pages, on "The Action of Natural Selection in producing Old Age, Decay and Death," written over twenty years ago. I had the same general idea as Weismann, but not that beautiful suggestion of the duration of life, in each case, being the minimum necessary for the preservation of the species. That I think masterly. The paper on "Heredity" is intensely interesting, and I am waiting anxiously for the concluding part. I will refer to these papers in notes in my book, though perhaps yours will be out first....--Yours faithfully,

A.R. WALLACE.

* * * * *

TO PROF. POULTON

Frith Hill, Godalming. November 8, 1888.

Dear Mr. Poulton,--I return herewith (but separately) the "proofs" I have of Weismann's Essays. The last critical one is rather heavy, and adds nothing of importance to the earlier one on Duration of Life. I enclose my "Note" on the subject, which was written, I think, about 1867, certainly before 1870. You will see it was only a few ideas jotted down for further elaboration and then forgotten. I see however it does contain the germ of Weismann's argument as to duration of life being determined by the time of securing continuance of the species.--Yours faithfully,

A.R. WALLACE.

* * * * *

TO PROF. POULTON

Frith Hall, Godalming. January 20, 1889.

My dear Mr. Poulton,--My attention has been called by Mr. Herdman, in his Inaugural Address to the Liverpool Biological Society, to Galton's paper on "Heredity," which I read years ago but had forgotten. I have just read it again (in the Journal of the Anthropological Institute, Vol. V., p. 329, Jan., 1876), and I find a remarkable anticipation of Weismann's theories which I think should be noticed in a preface to the translation of his book. He argues that it is the undeveloped germs or gemmules of the fertilised ovum that form the sexual elements of the offspring, and thus heredity and atavism are explained. He also argues that, as a corollary, "acquired modifications are barely if at all inherited in the correct sense of the word." He shows the imperfection of the evidence on this point, and admits, just as Weismann does, the heredity of changes in the parent like alcoholism, which, by permeating the whole tissues, may directly affect the reproductive elements. In fact, all the main features of Weismann's views seem to be here anticipated, and I think he ought to have the credit of it.

Being no physiologist, his language is not technical, and for this reason, and the place of publication perhaps, his remarkable paper appears to have been overlooked by physiologists.

I think you will find the paper very suggestive, even supplying some points overlooked by Weismann.--Yours faithfully,

A.R. WALLACE.

* * * * *

TO PROF. POULTON

Hamilton House, The Croft, Hastings. February 19, 1889.

Dear Mr. Poulton,--Do you happen to have, or can you easily refer to, Grant Allen's small books of collected papers under such titles as "Vignettes from Nature," "The Evolutionist at Large," "Colin Clout's Calendar," and another I can't remember? In one of them is a paper on the Origin of Wheat, in which he puts forth the theory that the grasses, etc., are degraded forms which were once insect-fertilised, summing up his views in the phrase, "Wheat is a degraded lily," or something like that. Now Henslow, in his "Floral Structures," adopts the same theory for all the wind-fertilised or self-fertilised flowers, and he tells me that he is alone in the view. I believe the view is a true one, and I want to give G. Allen the credit of first starting it, and want to see how far he went. If you have or can get this work of his with that paper, can you lend it me for a few days? I know not who to write to for it, as botanists of course ignore it, and G. Allen himself is, I believe, in Algeria....--Yours faithfully,

ALFRED R. WALLACE.

* * * * *

HERBERT SPENCER TO A.R. WALLACE

38 Queen's Gardens, Lancaster Gate, W. May 18, 1889.

Dear Mr. Wallace,--A few days ago there reached me a copy of your new book, "Darwinism," for which, along with this acknowledgment, I send my thanks. In my present state of health I dare not read, and fear I shall be unable to profit by the accumulation of evidence you have brought together. I see sundry points on which I might raise discussions, but beyond the fact that I am at present unable to enter into them, I doubt whether they would be of any use. I regret that you have used the title "Darwinism," for notwithstanding your qualification of its meaning you will, by using it, tend greatly to confirm the erroneous conception almost universally current.--Truly yours,

HERBERT SPENCER.

* * * * *

TO PROF. POULTON

Parkstone, Dorset. November 28, 1889.

My dear Mr. Poulton,--I have much pleasure in sending you Cope's book (with the review of "Darwinism"), which I hope you will keep as long as you like, till you have mastered all its obscurities of style and eccentricities of argument. I think you will find a good deal in it to criticise, and it will be well for you to know what the leader of the Neo-Lamarckians regards as the foundation-stones of his theory. I greatly enjoyed my visit to Oxford, and only regretted that I could not leave more time for personal talk with yourself, for I am so deplorably ignorant of modern physiology that I am delighted to get intelligible explanations of its bearings on the subjects that most interest me in science. I quite see all its importance in investigations of the mechanism of colours, but there is so much still unknown that it will be very hard to convince me that there is no other possible explanation of the peacock's feather than the "continued preference by the females" for the most beautiful males, in this one point, "during a long line of descent"--as Darwin says! I expect, however, great light from your new book....--Believe me yours very faithfully,

ALFRED R. WALLACE.

* * * * *

SIR FRANCIS GALTON TO A.R. WALLACE

42 Rutland Gate, S.W. May 24, 1890.

Dear Mr. Wallace,--I send the paper with pleasure, and am glad that you will read it, and I hope then see more clearly than the abstract could show the grounds of my argument.

These finger-marks are most remarkable things. Of course I have made out much more about them since writing that memoir. Indeed I have another paper on them next Thursday at the Royal Society, but that only refers to ways of cataloguing them, either for criminal administration, or what I am more interested in, viz. racial and hereditary inquiry.

What I have done in this way is not ready for publication, but I may mention (privately, please) that these persistent marks, which seem fully developed in the sixth month of foetal life, and appear under the reservations and in the evidence published in the memoir to be practically quite unchanged during life, are not correlated with any ordinary characteristic that I can discover. They are the same in the lowest idiots as in ordinary persons. (I took the impressions of some 80 of these, so idiotic that they mostly could not speak, or even stand, at the great Darenth Asylum, Dartford.) They are the same in clod-hoppers as in the upper classes, and yet they are as hereditary as other qualities, I think. Their tendency to symmetrical distribution on the two hands is marked, and symmetry is a form of kinship. My argument is that sexual selection can have had nothing to do with the patterns, neither can any other form of selection due to vigour, wits, and so forth, because they are not correlated with them. They just go their own gait, uninfluenced by anything that we can find or reasonably believe in, of a naturally selective influence, in the plain meaning of the phrase.--Very sincerely yours,

FRANCIS GALTON.

* * * * *

TO THEO. D.A. COCKERELL

Parkstone, Dorset. March 10, 1891.

Dear Mr. Cockerell,-- ... Your theory to account for the influence of a first male on progeny by a second seems very probable--and in fact if, as I suppose, spermatozoa often enter ova without producing complete fertilisation, it must be so. That would be easily experimented on, with fowls, dogs, etc., but I do not remember the fact having been observed except with horses. It ought to be common, when females have young by successive males.--Yours faithfully,

A.R. WALLACE.

* * * * *

The next letter relates to a controversy with Romanes concerning Herbert Spencer's argument about Co-adaptation which Romanes had urged in support of Neo-Lamarckism as opposed to Natural Selection. Prof. Meldola endeavoured to show that the difficulties raised by Spencer and supported by Romanes had no real weight because the possibility of so-called "co-adaptations" being developed successively in the order of evolution had not been reckoned with. There was no real divergence between Wallace and Prof. Meldola on this matter when they subsequently discussed it. The correspondence is in Nature, xliii. 557, and subsequently. See also "Darwin and After Darwin," by Romanes, 1895, ii. 68.

TO PROF. MELDOLA

Parkstone, Dorset, April 25, 1891.

My dear Meldola,--You have now put your foot in it! Romanes agrees with you! Henceforth he will claim you as a disciple, converted by his arguments!

There was one admission in your letter I was very sorry to see, because it cannot be strictly true, and is besides open to much misrepresentation. I mean the admission that Romanes pounces upon in his second paragraph. Of course, the number of individuals in a species being finite, the chance of four coincident variations occurring in any one individual--each such variation being separately very common--cannot be anything like "infinity to one." Why, then, do you concede it most fully?--the result being that Romanes takes you to concede that it is infinity to one against the coincident variations occurring in "any individuals." Surely, with the facts of coincident independent variation we now possess, the occurrence of three, four, or five, coincident variations cannot be otherwise than frequent. As a fact, more than half the whole population of most species seems to vary to a perceptible and measurable, and therefore sufficient, amount in scores of ways. Take a species with a million pairs of individuals--half of these vary sufficiently, either + or -, in the four acquired characters A, B, C, D: what will be the proportion of individuals that vary + in these four characters according to the law of averages? Will it not be about 1 in 64? If so it is ample--in many cases--for Natural Selection to work on, because in many cases less than 1/64 of offspring survives.

On Romanes' view of the impossibility of Natural Selection doing anything alone, because the required coincident variations do not occur, the occurrence of a "strong man" or a racehorse that beats all others easily must be impossible, since in each of these cases there must be scores of coincident favourable variations.

Given sufficient variation, I believe divergent modification of a species in two lines could easily occur, even if free intercrossing occurred, because, the numbers varying being a large proportion of the whole, the numbers which bred like with like would he sufficient to carry on the two lines of divergence, those that intercrossed and produced less perfectly adapted offspring being eliminated. Of course some amount of segregate breeding does always occur, as Darwin always maintained, but, as he also maintained, it is not absolutely essential to evolution. Romanes argues as if "free intercrossing" meant that none would pair like with like! I hope you will have another slap at him, and withdraw or explain that unlucky "infinity to one," which is Romanes' sheet-anchor.--Yours very truly,

ALFRED R. WALLACE.

* * * * *

TO PROF. POULTON

Parkstone, Dorset. June 16, 1892.

My dear Mr. Poulton,--Many thanks for sending me Weismann's additional Essays, which I look forward to reading with much pleasure. I have, however, read the first, and am much disappointed with it. It seems to me the weakest and most inconclusive thing he has yet written. At p. 17 he states his theory as to degeneration of eyes, and again, on p. 18, of anthers and filaments; but in both cases he fails to prove it, and apparently does not see that his panmixia, or "cessation of selection," cannot possibly produce continuous degeneration culminating in the total or almost total disappearance of an organ. Romanes and others have pointed out this weakness in his theory, but he does not notice it, and goes on calmly throughout the essay to assume that mere panmixia must cause progressive degeneration to an unlimited extent; whereas all it can do is to effect a reduction to the average of the total population on which selection has been previously worked. He says "individuals with weak eyes would not be eliminated," but omits to notice that individuals with strong eyes would also "not be eliminated," and as there is no reason alleged why variations in all directions should not occur as before, the free intercrossing would tend to keep up a mean condition only a little below that which was kept up by selection. It is clear that some form of selection must always co-operate in degeneration, such as economy of growth, which he hardly notices except as a possible but not a necessary factor, or actual injuriousness. It appears to me that what is wanted is to take a number of typical cases, and in each of them show how Natural Selection comes in to carry on the degeneration begun by panmixia. Weismann's treatment of the subject is merely begging the question.--Yours faithfully,

A.R. WALLACE.

* * * * *

TO PROF. POULTON

Parkstone, Dorset. August 29, 1892.

My dear Mr. Poulton,--As to panmixia you have quite misunderstood my position. By the "mean condition," I do not mean the "mean" during the whole course of development of the organ, as you seem to take it. That would indeed be absurd. I do mean the "mean" of the whole series of individual variations now occurring, during a period sufficient to contain all or almost all the variations to which the species is now subject. Take, for instance, such a case as the wings of the swallow, on the full development of which the life of the bird depends. Many individuals no doubt perish for lack of wing-power, due to deficiency in size or form of wing, or in the muscles which move it. The extreme limits of variation would be seen probably if we examined every swallow that had reached maturity during the last century. The average of all those would perhaps be 5 or 10 per cent. below the average of those that survive to become the parents of the next generation in any year; and what I maintain is, that panmixia alone could not reduce a swallow's wings below this first average. Any further reduction must be due either to some form of selection or to "economy of growth"--which is also, fundamentally, a form of selection. So with the eyes of cave animals, panmixia could only cause an imperfection of vision equal to the average of those variations which occurred, say, during a century before the animal entered the cave. It could only produce more effect than this if the effects of disuse are hereditary--which is a non-Weismannian doctrine. I think this is also the position that Romanes took.--Yours faithfully,

A.R. WALLACE.

* * * * *

TO MR. J.W. MARSHALL

Parkstone, Dorset. September 23, 1892.

My dear Marshall,--I am glad you enjoyed Mr. Hudson's book. His observations are inimitable--and his theories and suggestions, if not always the best, at least show thought on what he has observed.

I was most pleased with his demonstration as to the supposed instincts of young birds and lambs, showing clearly that the former at all events are not due to inherited experience, as Darwin thought. The whole book, too, is pervaded by such a true love of nature and such a perception of its marvels and mysteries as to be unique in my experience. The modern scientific morphologists seem so wholly occupied in tracing out the mechanism of organisms that they hardly seem to appreciate the overwhelming marvel of the powers of life, which result in such infinitely varied structures and such strange habits and so-called instincts. The older I grow the more marvellous seem to me the mere variety of form and habit in plants and animals, and the unerring certitude with which from a minute germ the whole complex organism is built up, true to the type of its kind in all the infinitude of details! It is this which gives such a charm to the watching of plants growing, and of kittens so rapidly developing their senses and habitudes!...--Yours very faithfully,

ALFRED R. WALLACE.

* * * * *

TO PROF. POULTON

Parkstone, Dorset. February 1, 1893.

My dear Poulton,--Thanks for the separate copy of your great paper on colours of larva, pupa, etc. I have read your conclusions and looked over some of the experiments, and think you have now pretty well settled that question.

I am reading through the new volume of the Life of Darwin, and am struck with the curious example his own case affords of non-heredity of acquired variations. He expresses his constant dread--one of the troubles of his life--that his children would inherit his bad health. It seems pretty clear, from what F. Darwin says in the new edition, that Darwin's constant nervous stomach irritation was caused by his five years sea-sickness. It was thoroughly established before, and in the early years of, his marriage, and, on his own theory his children ought all to have inherited it. Have they? You know perhaps better than I do, whether any of the family show any symptoms of that particular form of illness--and if not it is a fine case!--Yours very faithfully,

ALFRED R. WALLACE.

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Wallace was formally admitted to the Royal Society in June, 1893. The postscript of the following letter refers to his cordial reception by the Fellows.

TO PROF. MELDOLA

Parkstone, Dorset. June 10, 1893.

My dear Meldola,--As we had no time to "discourse" on Thursday, I will say a few words on the individual adaptability question. We have to deal with facts, and facts certainly show that, in many groups, there is a great amount of adaptable change produced in the individual by external conditions, and that that change is not inherited. I do not see that this places Natural Selection in any subordinate position, because this individual adaptability is evidently advantageous to many species, and may itself have been produced or increased by Natural Selection. When a species is subject to great changes of conditions, either locally or at uncertain times, it may be a decided advantage to it to become individually adapted to that change while retaining the power to revert instantly to its original form when the normal conditions return. But whenever the changed conditions are permanent, or are such that individual adaptation cannot meet the requirements, then Natural Selection rapidly brings about a permanent adaptation which is inherited. In plants these two forms of adaptation are well marked and easily tested, and we shall soon have a large body of evidence upon it. In the higher animals I imagine that individual adaptation is small in amount, as indicated by the fact that even slight varieties often breed true.

In Lepidoptera we have the two forms of colour-adaptability clearly shown. Many species are, in all their stages, permanently adapted to their environment. Others have a certain power of individual adaptation, as of the pupæ to their surroundings. If this last adaptation were strictly inherited it would be positively injurious, since the progeny would thereby lose the power of individual adaptability, and thus we should have light pupæ on dark surroundings, and vice versa. Each kind of adaptation has its own sphere, and it is essential that the one should be non-inheritable, the other heritable. The whole thing seems to me quite harmonious and "as it should be."

Thiselton-Dyer tells me that H. Spencer is dreadfully disturbed on the question. He fears that acquired characters may not be inherited, in which case the foundation of his whole philosophy is undermined!--Yours very truly,

ALFRED R. WALLACE.

P.S.--I am afraid you are partly responsible for that kindly meant but too personal manifestation which disturbed the solemnity of the Royal Society meeting on Thursday!...

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TO PROF. POULTON

Parkstone, Dorset. September 25, 1893.

My dear Poulton,--I suppose you were not at Nottingham and did not get the letter, paper, and photographs I sent you there, but to be opened by the Secretary of Section D in case you were not there. It was about a wonderful and perfectly authenticated case of a woman who dressed the arm of a gamekeeper after amputation, and six or seven months afterwards had a child born without the forearm on the right side, exactly corresponding in form and length of stump to that of the man. Photographs of the man, and of the boy seven or eight years old, were taken by the physician of the hospital where the man's arm was cut off, and they show a most striking correspondence. These, with my short paper, appear to have produced an effect, for a committee of Section D has been appointed to collect evidence on this and other matters....--Yours very faithfully,

ALFRED R. WALLACE.

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TO PROF. POULTON

Parkstone, Dorset. November 17, 1893.

My dear Poulton,--The letter I wrote to you at Nottingham was returned to me here (after a month), so I did not think it worth while to send it to you again, though it did contain my congratulations on your appointment, which I now repeat. As you have not seen the paper I sent to the British Association, I will just say that I should not have noticed the subject publicly but, after a friend had given me the photographs (sent with my paper), I came across the following statement in the new edition of Chambers' Encyclopædia, art. Deformities (by Prof. A. Hare): "In an increasing proportion of cases which are carefully investigated, it appears that maternal impressions, the result of shock or unpleasant experiences, may have a considerable influence in producing deformities in the offspring." In consequence of this I sent the case which had been furnished me, and which is certainly about as well attested and conclusive as anything can be. The facts are these:

A gamekeeper had his right forearm amputated at the North Devon Infirmary. He left before it was healed, thinking his wife could dress it, but as she was too nervous, a neighbour, a young recently married woman, a farmer's wife, still living, came and dressed it every day till it healed. About six months after she had a child born without right hand and forearm, the stump exactly corresponding in length to that of the gamekeeper. Dr. Richard Budd, M.D., F.R.C.P., of Barnstaple, the physician to the infirmary, when the boy was five or six years old, himself took a photograph of the boy and the gamekeeper side by side, showing the wonderful correspondence of the two arms. I have these facts direct from Dr. Budd, who was personally cognisant of the whole circumstances. A few years after, in November, 1876, Dr. Budd gave an account of the case and exhibited the photographs to a large meeting at the College of Physicians, and I have no doubt it is one of the cases referred to in the article I have quoted, though Dr. Budd thinks it has never been published. It will be at once admitted that this is not a chance coincidence, and that all theoretical difficulties must give way to such facts as this, ... Of course it by no means follows that similar causes should in all cases produce similar effects, since the idiosyncrasy of the mother is no doubt an important factor; but where the combined coincidences are so numerous as in this case--place, time, person and exact correspondence of resulting deformity--some causal relation must exist.--Believe me yours very truly,

ALFRED R. WALLACE.