232 EVOLUTION [CHAP. Ill 



Letter 157 You will say Go to the Devil and hold your tongue. No, 

 I will not hold my tongue ; for I must add that after going, 

 for my present book, all through domestic animals, I have 

 come to the conclusion that there are almost certainly several 

 cases of two or three or more species blended together and now 

 perfectly fertile together. Hence I conclude that there must 

 be something in domestication, perhaps the less stable con- 

 ditions, the very cause which induces so much variability, 

 which eliminates the natural sterility of species when crossed. 

 If so, we can see how unlikely that sterility should arise 

 between domestic races. Now I will hold my tongue. P. 143 : 

 ought not " Sanscrit ' to be " Aryan " ? What a capital 

 number the last Natural History Review is ! That is a grand 

 paper by Falconer. I cannot say how indignant Owen's 

 conduct about E. Columbi has made me. I believe I hate 

 him more than you do, even perhaps more than good old 

 Falconer does. But I have bubbled over to one or two 

 correspondents on this head, and will say no more. I have 

 sent Lubbock a little review of Bates' paper in Linn. 

 Transact} which L. seems to think will do for your Review. 

 Do inaugurate a great improvement, and have pages cut, like 

 the Yankees do ; I will heap blessings on your head. Do not 

 waste your time in answering this. 



Letter 158 To John Lubbock [Lord Avebury]. 



Down, Jan. 23rd [1863]. 



I have no criticism, except one sentence not perfectly 

 smooth. I think your introductory remarks very striking, 

 interesting, and novel. 2 They interested me the more, 

 because the vaguest thoughts of the same kind had passed 

 through my head ; but I had no idea that they could be so 

 well developed, nor did I know of exceptions. Sitaris and 

 Meloe* seem very good. You have put the whole case of 

 metamorphosis in a new light ; I dare say what you remark 



1 The unsigned review of Mr. Bates' work on mimetic butterflies 

 appeared in the Nat. Hist. Review (1863), p. 219. 



2 " On the Development of Chloeon (Ephemera) dimidiatum, Part I. 

 By John Lubbock. Trans. Linn. Soc., Vol. XXIV., pp. 61-78, 1864 [Read 

 Jan. 1 5th, 1863]. 



3 Sitaris and Meloe, two genera of coleopterous insects, are referred to 

 by Lubbock (op. cit., pp. 63-64) as " perhaps . . the most remarkable cases 

 . , among the Coleoptera" of curious and complicated metamorphoses. 



