1 62 THE WRITING OF THE 'ORIGIN OF SPECIES.' [1859.. 



you for allowing me to read it. Had I read it some months 

 ago, I should have profited by it for my forthcoming volume.. 

 But my two chapters on this subject are in type, and, though 

 not yet corrected, I am so wearied out and weak in health, 

 that I am fully resolved not to add one word, and merely 

 improve the style. So you will see that my views are nearly 

 the same with yours, and you may rely on it that not one 

 word shall be altered owing to my having read your ideas. 

 Are you aware that Mr. W. Earl * [sic] published several years- 

 ago the view of distribution of animals in the Malay Archi- 

 pelago, in relation to the depth of the sea between the islands ? 

 I was much struck with this, and have been in the habit of 

 noting all facts in distribution in that archipelago, and else- 

 where, in this relation. I have been led to conclude that 

 there has been a good deal of naturalisation in the different 

 Malay islands, and which I have thought, to a certain extent,, 

 would account for anomalies. Timor has been my greatest 

 puzzle. What do you say to the peculiar Felis there? I 

 wish that you had visited Timor ; it has been asserted that a 

 fossil mastodon's or elephant's tooth (I forget which) has been 

 found there, which would be a grand fact. I was aware that 

 Celebes was very peculiar ; but the relation to Africa is quite 

 new to me, and marvellous, and almost passes belief. It is as 

 anomalous as the relation of plants in S.W. Australia to the 

 Cape of Good Hope. I differ wholly 'from you on the colonisa- 

 tion of oceanic islands, but you will have every one else 

 on your side. I quite agree with respect to all islands not- 

 situated far in the ocean. I quite agree on the little occa- 

 sional intermigration between lands [islands?] when once 

 pretty well stocked with inhabitants, but think this does not 

 apply to rising and ill-stocked islands. Are you aware that 

 annually birds are blown to Madeira, the Azores (and to 

 Bermuda from America) ? I wish I had given a fuller abstract 

 of my reasons for not believing in Forbes's great continental 

 * Probably Mr. W. Earle's paper, Geographical Soc. Journal, 1845. 



