382 EVOLUTION [CHAP. V 



Letter 292 of wit are delightful. I particularly enjoyed the pithy judg- 

 ment in about five words on Comte. 1 Notwithstanding the 

 clearness of every sentence, the subjects are in part so difficult 

 that I found them stiff reading. I fear, therefore, that it will 

 be too stiff for the general public ; but I heartily hope that 

 this will prove to be a mistake, and in this case the intelli- 

 gence of the public will be greatly exalted in my eyes. The 

 writing of this book must have been awfully hard work, I 

 should think. 



Letter 293 To F. M tiller. 2 



Down, March 4th [1879]. 



I thank you cordially for your letter. Your facts and 

 discussion on the loss of the hairs on the legs of the caddis- 

 flies seem to me the most important and interesting thing 

 which I have read for a very long time. I hope that you will 

 not disapprove, but I have sent your letter to 'Nature* with a 

 few prefatory remarks, pointing out to the general reader the 

 importance of your view, and stating that I have been puzzled 



1 Possibly the passage referred to is on p. 52. 



2 Dr. Johann Friedrich Theodor Miiller( 1822-97) was born in Thuringia, 

 and left his native country at the age of thirty to take up his residence at 

 Blumenau, Sta Catharina, South Brazil, where he was appointed teacher 

 of mathematics at the Gymnasium of Desterro. He afterwards held a 

 natural history post, from which he was dismissed by the Brazilian 

 Government in 1891 on the ground of his refusal to take up his residence 

 at Rio de Janeiro (Nature ', Dec. 17th, 1891, p. 156). M tiller published a 

 large number of papers on zoological and botanical subjects, and rendered 

 admirable service to the cause of evolution by his unrivalled powers of 

 observation and by the publication of a work entitled Fur Darwin (1865), 

 which was translated by Dallas under the title Facts and Arguments for 

 Darwin (London, 1869). The long series of letters between Darwin and 

 Miiller bear testimony to the friendship and esteem which Darwin felt 

 for his co-worker in Brazil. In a letter to Dr. Hermann Miiller (March 

 29th, 1867), Mr. Darwin wrote : " I sent you a few days ago a paper on 

 climbing plants by your brother, and I then knew for the first time that 

 Fritz Miiller was your brother. I feel the greatest respect for him as one 

 of the most able naturalists living, and he has aided me in many ways 

 with extraordinary kindness." See Life and Letters ; III., p. 37 ; Nature^ 

 Oct. 7th, 1897, Vol. LVL, p. 546. 



3 Fritz Miiller, " On a Frog having Eggs on its Back On the 

 Abortion of the Hairs on the Legs of certain Caddis-Flies, etc." : Mtiller's 

 letter and one from Charles Darwin were published in Nature, Vol. XIX., 

 p. 462, 1879. 



