106 EVOLUTION [CHAP. II 



Letter61 To J. D. Hooker. 



Down [1858?] 



Many thanks for Ledebour and still more for your letter, 

 with its admirable resumt of all your objections. It is really 

 most kind of you to take so very much trouble about what 

 seems to you, and probably is, mere vagaries. 



I will earnestly try and be cautious. I will write out my 

 tables and conclusion, and (when well copied out) I hope you 

 will be so kind as to read it. I will then put it by and after 

 some months look at it with fresh eyes. I will briefly work 

 in all your objections and Watson's. I labour under a great 

 difficulty from feeling sure that, with what very little sys- 

 tematic work I have done, small genera were more interesting 

 and therefore more attracted my attention. 



One of your remarks I do not see the bearing of under 

 your point of view namely, that in monotypic genera " the 

 variation and variability ' are " much more frequently 

 noticed " than in polytypic genera. I hardly like to ask, but 

 this is the only one of your arguments of which I do not see 

 the bearing ; and I certainly should be very glad to know. I 

 believe I am the slowest (perhaps the worst) thinker in 

 England ; and I now consequently fully admit the full 

 hostility of Urticacese, which I will give in my tables. 



I will make no remarks on your objections, as I do hope 

 you will read my MS., which will not cost you much trouble 

 when fairly copied out. From my own experience, I hardly 

 believe that the most sagacious observers, without counting, 

 could have predicted whether there were more or fewer 

 recorded varieties in large or small genera ; for I found, when 

 actually making the list, that I could never strike a balance 

 in my mind, a good many varieties occurring together, in 

 small or in large genera, always threw me off the balance. , . . 



P.S. I have just thought that your remark about the 

 much variation of monotypic genera was to show me that 

 even in these, the smallest genera, there was much variability. 

 If this be so, then do not answer ; and I will so understand it. 



