18701882] WE ISM ANN 397 



Down, Dec. 29th, 1881. Letter 309 



I thank you for your " Christmas card," and heartily 

 return your good wishes. What you say about the coats of 

 mules is new to me, as is the statement about hermaphro- 

 ditism in hybrid moths. This latter fact seems to me par- 

 ticularly curious ; and to make a very wild hypothesis, 

 I should be inclined to account for it by reversion to the 

 primordial condition of the two sexes being united, for I 

 think it certain that hybridism does lead to reversion. 



I keep fairly well, but have not much strength, and feel 

 very old. 



To R. Meldola. Letter 310 



Down, Feb. 2nd, 1882. 



I am very sorry that I can add nothing to my very 

 brief notice, without reading again Weismann's work and 

 getting up the whole subject by reading my own and 

 other books, and for so much labour I have not strength. 

 I have now been working at other subjects for some years, 

 and when a man grows as old as I am, it is a great wrench 

 to his brain to go back to old and half- forgotten subjects. 

 You would not readily believe how often I am asked 

 questions of all kinds, and quite lately I have had to give 

 up much time to do a work, not at all concerning myself, 

 but which I did not like to refuse. I must, however, 

 somewhere draw the line, or my life will be a misery 

 to me. 



I have read your preface, 1 and it seems to me excellent. 

 I am sorry in many ways, including the honour of England 

 as a scientific country, that your translation has as yet 

 sold badly. Does the publisher or do you lose by it ? If 

 the publisher, though I shall be sorry for him, yet it is in 

 the way of business ; but if you yourself lose by it, I 

 earnestly beg you to allow me to subscribe a trifle, viz., 

 ten guineas, towards the expense of this work, which you 

 have undertaken on public grounds. 



1 Studies in the Theory of Descent. By A. Weismann. Translated 

 and Edited by Raphael Meldola ; with a Prefatory Notice by C. Darwin 

 and a Translator's Preface. See Letter 291. 



