158 SPREAD OF EVOLUTION. [1861. 



contrary), for I long to see you. I congratulate you on your 

 grand work. 



Ever yours, 



C. Darwin. 



P.S. — Tell Lady Lyell tKat I was unable to digest the 

 funereal ceremonies of the ants, notwithstanding that Erasmus 

 has often told me that I should find some day that they have 

 their bishops. After a battle I have always seen the ants 

 carry away the dead for food.' Ants display the utmost 

 economy, and always carry away a dead fellow-creature as 

 food. But I have just forwarded two most extraordinary 

 letters to Busk, from a backwoodsman in Texas, who has evi- 

 dently watched ants carefully, and declares most positively 

 that they plant and cultivate a kind of grass for store food, 

 and plant other bushes for shelter I I do not know what to 

 think, except that the old gentleman is not fibbing intention- 

 ally. I have left the respoasibility with Busk whether or no 

 to read the letters.* 



C. Darwifi to Thomas Davidson. \ 



Down, April 26, 1861. 



My dear Sir, — I hope that you will excuse me for ven- 

 turing to make a suggestion to you which I am perfectly well 

 aware it is a very remote chance that you would adopt. I do 

 not know^ whether you have read my * Origin of Speci-es ' ; in 

 that book I have made the remark, which I apprehend will 

 be universally admitted, that as a za/iole^ the fauna of any 

 formation is intermediate in character between that of the 



* /. e. to read them before the Linnean Society. 



f Thomas Davidson, F.R.S., born in Edinburgh, May 17, 1S17 ; died 

 1885. His researches were chiefly connected with the sciences of geology 

 and palaeontolog}', and were directed especially to the elucidation of the 

 characters, classification, history, geological and geographical distribution 

 of recent and fossil Brachiopoda. On this subject he brought out an im- 

 portant work, • British Fossil Brachiopoda,' 5 vols. 4to, (Cooper, ' Men of 

 the Time,' 1884.) 



