i86i.] MR. BATES. 1 55 



Before reading Bates, I had become thoroughly dissatis- 

 fied with what I wrote to you. 1 hope you may get Bates to 

 write in the ' Linnean.' 



Here is a good joke : H. C. Watson (who, I fancy and 

 hope, is going to review the new edition * of the ' Origin ') 

 says that in the first four paragraphs of the introduction, the 

 words "I," '*me," *'my," occur forty-three times! I was 

 dimly conscious of the accursed fact. He says it can be ex- 

 plained phrenologically, which I suppose civilly means, that 

 I am the most egotistically self-sufficient man alive ; perhaps 

 so. I wonder whether he will print this pleasing fact ; it 

 beats hollow the parentheses in Wollaston's writing. 



/ am, my dear Hooker, ever yours, 



C. Darwin. 



P.S. — Do not spread this pleasing joke ; it is rather too 

 biting. 



C. Darwin to J. D. Hooker. 



Down, [April] 23 ? [1861.] 



.... I quite agree with what you say on Lieutenant 

 Hutton's Review \ (who he is I know not) ; it struck me as 

 very original. He is one of the very few who see that the 

 change of species cannot be directly proved, and that the 

 doctrine must sink or swim according as it groups and ex- 

 plains phenomena. It is really curious how few judge it in 

 this way, which is clearly the right way. I have been much 

 interested by Bentham's paper % in the N. H. R., but it would 

 not, of course, from familiarity strike you as it did me. I 

 liked the whole ; all the facts on the nature of close and 

 varying species. Good Heavens ! to think of the British 



* Third edition of 2000 copies, published in April, 1861. 



f In the 'Geologist,' 1861, p. 132, by Lieutenant Frederick Wollaston 

 Hutton, now Professor of Biology and Geology at Canterbuiy College, 

 New Zealand. 



X "On the Species and Genera of Plants, &c.," 'Natural History Re- 

 view,' 1S61, p. 133. 



