200 EVOLUTION [CHAP. Ill 



Letter 136 think Owen will be wrong that my book will be forgotten in 



ten years, for a French edition is now going through the 



press and a second German edition wanted. Your long letter 



to Bates has set my head working, and makes me repent of 



the nine months spent on orchids ; though I know not why I 



should not have amused myself on them as well as slaving on 



bones of ducks and pigeons, etc. The orchids have been 



splendid sport, though at present I am fearfully sick of them. 



I enclose a waste copy of woodcut of Mormodes ignea ; 



I wish you had a plant at Kew, for I am sure its wonderful 



mechanism and structure would amuse you. Is it not curious 



the way the labellum sits on the top of the column ? here 



insects alight and are beautifully shot, when they touch a 



certain sensitive point, by the pollinia. 



How kindly you have helped me in my work ! Farewell, 

 my dear old fellow. 



Letter '37 To H. W. Bates. 



Down, May 4th [1862]. 



Hearty thanks for your most interesting letter and three 

 very valuable extracts. I am very glad that you have been 

 looking at the South Temperate insects. I wish that the 

 materials in the British Museum had been richer ; but I should 

 think the case of the South American Carabi, supported by 

 some other case, would be worth a paper. To us who theorise 

 I am sure the case is very important. Do the South American 

 Carabi differ more from the other species than do, for instance, 

 the Siberian and European and North American and 

 Himalayan (if the genus exists there) ? If they do, I entirely 

 agree with you that the difference would be too great to 

 account for by the recent Glacial period. I agree, also, with 

 you in utterly rejecting an independent origin for these 

 Carabi. There is a difficulty, as far as I know, in our igno- 

 rance whether insects change quickly in time ; you could 

 judge of this by knowing how far closely allied coleoptera 



in the present state of science is one advantage, at any rate. Indeed, I 

 think that it is, in the present state of the inquiry, the legitimate position 

 to take up ; it is time enough to bother our heads with the secondary 

 cause when there is some evidence of it or some demand for it at 

 present I do not see one or the other, and so feel inclined to renounce any 

 other for the present." 



