84 EVOLUTION [CHAP. II 



Letter 41 agreement with E. de Beaumont's lines of Elevation, or such 

 men as Forbes with his Polarity ; x I have not a doubt that 

 before many months are over I shall be longing for the most 

 dishonest species as being more honest than the honestest 

 theories. One remark more. If you feel any interest, or can 

 get any one else to feel any interest on the aberrant genera 

 question, I should think the most interesting way would be 

 to take aberrant genera in any great natural family, and 

 test the average number of species to the genera in that 

 family. 



How I wish we lived near each other ! I should so like 

 a talk with you on geographical distribution, taken in its 

 greatest features. I have been trying from land productions 

 to take a very general view of the world, and I should so like 

 to see how far it agrees with plants. 



Letter 42 To Mrs. Lyell. 2 



Down, Jan. 26th [1856]. 



I shall be very glad to be of any sort of use to you in 

 regard to the beetles. But first let me thank you for your 

 kind note and offer of specimens to my children. My boys 

 are all butterfly hunters ; and all young and ardent lepidop- 

 terists despise, from the bottom of their souls, coleopterists. 



The simplest plan for your end and for the good of 

 entomology, I should think, would be to offer the collection 

 to Dr. J. E. Gray 3 for the British Museum on condition that 



1 Edward Forbes " On the Manifestation of Polarity in the Distribu- 

 tion of Organized Beings in Time " (Edinburgh New Phil. Journal, 

 Vol. LVII., 1854, p. 332). The author points out that "the maximum 

 development of generic types during the Palaeozoic period was during its 

 earlier epochs ; that during the Neozoic period towards its later periods." 

 Thus the two periods of activity are conceived to be at the two opposite 

 poles of a sphere which in some way represents for him the system of 

 Nature. 



2 Mrs. Lyell is a daughter of the late Mr. Leonard Horner, and widow 

 of Lieut.-Col. Lyell, a brother of Sir Charles. 



3 Dr. John Edward Gray, F.R.S. (1800-75) became an assistant to the 

 Natural History Department of the British Museum in 1824, and was 

 appointed Keeper in 1840. Dr. Gray published a great mass of zoological 

 work, and devoted himself " with unflagging energy to the development 

 of the collections under his charge." (A?in. Mag. Nat. Hist., Vol. XV., 

 p. 281, 1875.) 



