18641869] SELF -STERILITY 303 



Nevertheless, I wish to God it was all over for your sake. I Letter 221 

 think, from several long talks, that Huxley will give an 

 excellent and original lecture on Geograph. Distrib. of birds. 

 I have been working very hard : too hard of late on 

 Sexual Selection, which turns out a gigantic subject ; and 

 almost every day new subjects turn up requiring investiga- 

 tion and leading to endless letters and searches through 

 books. I am bothered, also, with heaps of foolish letters on 

 all sorts of subjects, but I am much interested in my subject, 

 and sometimes see gleams of light. All my other letters 

 have prevented me indulging myself in writing to you ; but 

 I suddenly found the locust grass * yesterday in flower, and 

 had to despatch it at once. I suppose some of your assistants 

 will be able to make the genus out without great trouble. 

 I have done little in experiment of late, but I find that 

 mignonette is absolutely sterile with pollen from the same 

 plant. Any one who saw stamen after stamen bending 

 upwards and shedding pollen over the stigmas of the same 

 flower would declare that the structure was an admirable 

 contrivance for self-fertilisation. How utterly mysterious it 

 is that there should be some difference in ovules and contents 

 of pollen-grains (for the tubes penetrate own stigma) causing 

 fertilisation when these are taken from any two distinct 

 plants, and invariably leading to impotence when taken from 

 the same plant ! By Jove, even Pan. 2 won't explain this. 

 It is a comfort to me to think that you will be surely 

 haunted on your death-bed for not honouring the great god 

 Pan. I am quite delighted at what you say about my book, 

 and about Bentham ; when writing it, I was much interested 

 in some parts, but latterly I thought quite as poorly of it as 

 even the Atkentzum. It ought to be read abroad for the 

 sake of the booksellers, for five editions have come or are 

 coming out abroad ! I am ashamed to say that I have read 

 only the organic part of Lyell, and I admire all that I have 

 read as much as you. It is a comfort to know that possibly 

 when one is seventy years old one's brain may be good for 

 work. It drives me mad, and I know it does you too, that 



1 No doubt the plants raised from seeds taken from locust dung sent 

 by Mr. Weale from South Africa. The case is mentioned in the fifth 

 edition of the Origin, published in 1869, p. 439. 



3 Pangenesis. 



