xlviii MEMOIR. 
say, as to a succulent maritime variety of a plant, that its original parent 
(its condition before migrating to seaside) varied in a succulent direction 
quite as much in the interior of the land as on the seaside, but that the 
seaside habitat favoured the first germs of succulence, and led them on, 
generation after generation, whereas the interior habitat neglected them or 
favoured the opposite tendency. 
‘‘T have no doubt you have facts to show that a plant like those we are 
discussing, originally showed (in the first one or two generations) no more 
tendency to succulence on the seaside than in the interior, and therefore 
I give itup. I shall be most anxious to have Mr. Darwin’s opinion on the 
essay. My book is getting on; I have had six sheets of proof down already 
“Yours sincerely, 
“CH. W. BATES,” 
The letters which survive do not indicate the precise date when 
Bates first met Darwin and Hooker. But it may be gathered from 
the Preface to the Travels and from the more familiar terms of 
address which result from personal intercourse that he made their 
acquaintance in 1861. Ina note contributed by Sir Joseph Hooker 
to the “ Reminiscences of Bates” which appeared in the Proceedings 
of the Royal Geographical Society, April 1892, he says :— 
‘‘T first had the pleasure of seeing him—and to see him was to know him, 
for a more translucent character I never encountered—at Mr. Darwin’s, at 
Down, very shortly after his return from the Amazons. We there spent 
several days together, and I can remark none more enjoyable. There was 
such a fascination in his manner and character, and such a boyish, hearty 
enjoyment of his return to his native country, and all that it contained, from 
Shakespeare to Pusch, and from Darwin to the merest bug-hunter (so long 
as the work was honest). Darwin’s appreciation of him was whole-hearted 
and all-round, and Bates’s first visit to Down was marked with a white stone 
in his host’s memory, as in mine, and often recurred to by us. I have over 
and over again compared and contrasted these two friends, and always, if I 
may be so presumptuous as to record it, to the advantage of both.’’* 
The following correspondence between Bates and Hooker is 
of permanent interest :— 
HT. W. Bates to Dr. F. D. Tlooker 
‘“‘ KING STREET, LEICESTER, Yanuary 11th, 1862. 
‘* My DEAR SIR, 
‘“IT go to town on Monday, and intend to be present at the Lin. 
Soc. meeting on Thursday, for the purpose of fulfilling my promise to exhibit 
a box of mimetic butterflies. 
= SE Gop 249: 
