i862.] FALCONER ON SPECIES. l8i 



I am surprised, but do not pretend to form an opinion at 

 Hooker's statement that higher species, genera, &c., are best 

 limited. It seems to me a bold statement. 



Looking to the 'Origin,' I see that I state that the pro- 

 ductions of the land seem to change quicker than those of 

 the sea (Chapter X., p. 339, 3d edition), and I add there is 

 some reason to believe that organisms considered high in the 

 scale change quicker than those that are low. I remember 



writing these sentences after much deliberation I 



remember well feeling much hesitation abcut putting in even 

 the guarded sentences which I did. My doubts, I remember, 

 related to the rate of change of the Radiata in the Secondary- 

 formation, and of the Foraminifera in the oldest Tertiary 



beds Good night, 



C. Darwin. 



C. Darwin to C. Lyell. 



Down, Oct. I [1862]. 



.... I found here * a short and very kind note of Fal- 

 coner, with some pages of his ' Elephant Memoir,' which will 

 be published, in which he treats admirably on long persistence 

 of type. I thought he was going to make a good and crush- 

 ing attack on me, but to my great satisfaction, he ends by 

 pointing out a loophole, and adds, f "with him I have no faith 

 that the mammoth and other extinct elephants made their 



appearance suddenly The most rational view seems 



to be that they are the modified descendants of earlier pro- 

 genitors, &c." This is capital. There will not be soon one 

 good palaeontologist who believes in immutability. Falconer 

 does not allow for the Proboscidean group being a failing one, 

 and therefore not likely to be giving off new races. 



* On his return from Bournemouth. 



f Falconer, " On the American Fossil Elephant," in the * Nat. Hist. 

 Review,' 1863, p. 81. The words preceding those cited by my father 

 make the meaning of his quotation clearer. The passage begins as follows : 

 " The inferences which I draw from these facts are not opposed to one of 

 the leading propositions of Darwin's theory. With him," &c. &c. 



