Il6 EVOLUTION [CHAP. II 



Letter 70 present I greatly prefer land in the Antarctic regions, where 

 now there is only ice and snow, but which before the Glacial 

 period might well have been clothed by vegetation. You 

 have thus to invent far less land, and that more central ; and 

 aid is got by floating ice for transporting seed. 



I hope I shall not weary you by scribbling my notions at 

 this length. After writing last to you I began to think that 

 the Malay Land might have existed through part of the 

 Glacial epoch. Why I at first doubted was from the difference 

 of existing mammals in different islands ; but many are very 

 close, and some identical in the islands, and I am constantly 

 deceiving myself from thinking of the little change which the 

 shells and plants, whilst all co-existing in their own northern 

 hemisphere, have undergone since the Glacial epoch ; but I 

 am convinced that this is most false reasoning, for the relations 

 of organism to new organisms, when thrown together, are by 

 far the most important. 



When you speak of plants having undergone more 

 change since old geological periods than animals, are you not 

 rather comparing plants with higher animals ? Think how 

 little some, indeed many, mollusca have changed. Remember 

 Silurian Nautilus, Lingula and other Brachiopods, and Nucula, 

 and amongst Echinoderms, the Silurian Asterias, etc. 



What you say about lowness of brackish-water plants 

 interests me. I remember that they are apt to be social 

 (i.e. many individuals in comparison to specific forms), and I 

 should be tempted to look at this as a case of a very small 

 area, and consequently of very few individuals in comparison 

 with those on the land or in pure fresh-water ; and hence 

 less development (odious word !) than on land or fresh-water. 

 But here comes in your two-edged sword ! I should like 

 much to see any paper on plants of brackish water or on 

 the edge of the sea ; but I suppose such has never been 

 published. 



Thanks about Nelumbium, for I think this was the very 

 plant which from the size of seed astonished me, and which 

 A. De Candolle adduced as a marvellous case of almost 

 impossible transport. I now find to my surprise that herons 

 do feed sometimes on [illegible] fruit ; and grebes on seeds 

 of Compositae. 



Many thanks for offer of help about a grant for the 



