258 EVOLUTION [CHAP. IV 



Letter 182 medal, but that I presumed it was you, or Hooker or Busk, 

 and that I felt sure, if you attended, you would receive the 

 medal for me ; and that if none of you attended, that Lyell or 

 Huxley would receive it for me. Will you receive it, and it 

 could be left at my brother's ? 



Again accept my cordial and enduring thanks for all your 

 kindness and sympathy. 



Letter 183 To B. D. Walsh. 



Down, Dec. 4th [1864]. 



I have been greatly interested by your account of your 

 American life. What an extraordinary and self-contained 

 life you have led ! and what vigour of mind you must possess 

 to follow science with so much ardour after all that you have 

 undergone ! I am very much obliged to you for your pamphlet 1 

 on Geographical Distribution, on Agassiz, etc. I am delighted 

 at the manner in which you have bearded this lion in his den. 

 I agree most entirely with all that you have written. What I 

 meant when I wrote to Agassiz to thank him for a bundle of 

 his publications, was exactly what you suppose. 2 I confess, 

 however, I did not fully perceive how he had misstated my 

 views ; but I only skimmed through his Methods of Study, and 

 thought it a very poor book. I am so much accustomed to 

 be utterly misrepresented that it hardly excites my attention. 

 But you really have hit the nail on the head capitally. All 

 the younger good naturalists whom I know think of Agassiz 

 as you do ; but he did grand service about glaciers and fish. 

 About the succession of forms, Pictet has given up his whole 

 views, and no geologist now agrees with Agassiz. I am glad 

 that you have attacked Dana's wild notions ; [though] I have 

 a great respect for Dana ... If you have an opportunity, 

 read in Trans. Linn. Soc. Bates on " Mimetic Lepidoptera of 

 Amazons." I was delighted with his paper. 



I have got a notice of your views about the female Cynips 



1 Mr. Walsh's paper " On certain Entomological Speculations of the 

 New England School of Entomologists " was published in the Proc. 

 Entomolog. Soc. of Philadelphia, Sept. 1864, p. 207. 



2 Namely, that Mr. Darwin, having been abused as an atheist, etc., 

 by other writers, probably felt grateful to a writer who was willing to 

 allow him " a spirit as reverential as his own." (Methods of Study, 

 Preface, p. iv.) 



