1859-1863] BATES 197 



been taken about slave-ants in the Origin than of any other Letter 134 

 passage. 



I fully expect to delight in your Travels. Keep to simple 

 style, as in your excellent letters, but I beg pardon, I am 

 again advising. 



What a capital paper yours will be on mimetic resem- 

 blances ! You will make quite a new subject of it. I had 

 thought of such cases as a difficulty; and once, when corre- 

 sponding with Dr. Collingwood, I thought of your explanation*; 

 but I drove it from my mind, for I felt that I had not know- 

 ledge to judge one way or the other. Dr. C, I think, states 

 that the mimetic forms inhabit the same country, but I did not 

 know whether to believe him. What wonderful cases yours 

 seem to be ! Could you not give a few woodcuts in your 

 Travels to illustrate this ? I am tired with a hard day's work, 

 so no more, except to give my sincere thanks and hearty 

 wishes for the success of your Travels. 



To J. D. Hooker. Letter 135 



Down, March i8th [1862]. 



Your letter discusses lots of interesting subjects, and I am 

 very glad you have sent for your letter to Bates. 1 What do 

 you mean by "individual plants"? 2 I fancied a bud lived 

 only a year, and you could hardly expect any change in that 

 time ; but if you call a tree or plant an individual, you have 

 sporting buds. Perhaps you mean that the whole tree does 

 not change. Tulips, in "breaking," change. Fruit seems 

 certainly affected by the stock. I think I have 3 got cases 

 of slight change in alpine plants transplanted. All these 



1 Published in Mr. Clodd's memoir of Bates in the Naturalist on the 

 Amazons, 1892, p. 1. 



2 In a letter to Mr. Darwin dated March i7th, 1862, Sir J. D. Hooker 

 had discussed a supposed difference between animals and plants, " inas- 

 much as the individual animal is certainly changed materially by external 

 conditions, the latter (I think) never, except in such a coarse way as 

 stunting or enlarging e.g. no increase of cold on the spot, or change 

 of individual plant from hot to cold, will induce said individual plant to 

 get more woolly covering ; but I suppose a series of cold seasons would 

 bring about such a change in an individual quadruped, just as rowing will 

 harden hands, etc." 



3 See note i, Letter 16. 



