40 EVOLUTION [CHAP. II 



Letter 13 to Berkeley ; it was not large. I do not believe he has yet 

 published an account, but he wrote to me some year ago 

 that he had described [the specimens] and mislaid all his 

 descriptions. Would it not be well for you to put yourself 

 in communication with him, as otherwise something will 



o 



perhaps be twice laboured over ? My best (though poor) 

 collection of the cryptogams was from the Chonos Islands. 



Would you kindly observe one little fact for me, whether 

 any species of plant, peculiar to any island, as Galapagos, 

 St. Helena, or New Zealand, where there are no large 

 quadrupeds, have hooked seeds such hooks as, if observed 

 here, would be thought with justness to be adapted to catch 

 into wool of animals. 



Would you further oblige me some time by informing me 

 (though I forget this will certainly appear in your Antarctic 

 Flora] whether in islands like St. Helena, Galapagos, and 

 New Zealand, the number of families and genera are large 

 compared with the number of species, as happens in coral 

 islands, and as, I believe, in the extreme Arctic land. Cer- 

 tainly this is the case with marine shells in extreme Arctic 

 seas. Do you suppose the fewness of species in proportion 

 to number of large groups in coral islets is owing to the 

 chance of seeds from all orders getting drifted to such new 

 spots, as I have supposed. Did you collect sea-shells in 

 Kerguelen-land ? I should like to know their character. 



Your interesting letters tempt me to be very unreasonable 

 in asking you questions ; but you must not give yourself any 

 trouble about them, for I know how fully and worthily you 

 are employed. 1 



Besides a general interest about the southern lands, I 

 have been now ever since my return engaged in a very pre- 

 sumptuous work, and I know no one individual who would 

 not say a very foolish one. I was so struck with the distribution 

 of the Galapagos organisms, etc., and with the character of 

 the American fossil mammifers, etc., that I determined to 

 collect blindly every sort of fact which could bear any way on 

 what are species. I have read heaps of agricultural and 

 horticultural books, and have never ceased collecting facts. 

 At last gleams of light have come, and I am almost convinced 



1 The rest of the letter has been previously published in Life and 

 Letters, II., p. 23. 



