MEMOTR. Ixxxvii 
so. Eleven years of tropical residence and travel, devoted to one pursuit, is a 
sufficient portion of life to be so spent. 
‘‘T have amassed an extensive private collection, and intend to devote at 
least some years to the study of the species, with a view to publishing a 
‘Montfauna’ of the Amazon valley. 
‘¢ With regard to the other topic mentioned in your very kind letter, I must 
assure you that I think I have pursued, and still do pursue, the investigation 
of the wonderful and beautiful creatures that people the earth with a spirit of 
humility, admiration, and reverence. There will be differences of opinion 
between us, I have no doubt, on mere matters of undemonstrable dogmatic 
theology, but in the more essential points of true religious feeling and spirit, I 
hope in anything I may hereafter write and publish, to continue and increase 
the good opinion you appear to have of me. 
ef Et Wie Eig 
Considering how full Bates’s days were with office routine, how 
full, too, his holidays with work always taken with him to his 
cottage at Folkestone ; and, as already shown, in what variety of 
ways his time was trenched upon, it is surprising to those who 
knew him best how well he kept himself aw courant with the 
latest science. Doubtless, in this again, his early business training 
had taught him the secret of taking care of the minutes, leaving the 
hours to take care of themselves. Therefore, little escaped him. 
For example, among recent matters, acquaintance with the new evi- 
dence in support of the European origin of the “ Aryan” race; with 
the arguments of Weismann, in his Essays on Heredity, against the 
transmission of characters acquired during the lifetime of the 
parent; with the theory of “ Physiological Selection ” formulated by 
Romanes ; was made in quick succession. Weismann’s book in- 
terested him keenly, and well-nigh moved him to written expression 
of his views, of which only a few lines are the outcome.* His verdict 
on it was—“ not proven”; and he inclined to that verdict being 
upheld. Romanes’s paper partly repelled him by an obscurity of 
* They are as follows: ‘‘ Weismann (p. 413) seems to wriggle out of the difficulty 
presented by Hoffman’s experiments on wild flowers. He admits that the double flowers 
obtained by continuous cultivation from normal wild flowers become hereditary, but says 
that the change was gradual, and at length affected the germ-plasm, z.¢., that the external 
influences (soil, cultivation, etc.) gradually produced a change in the germ-plasm, and 
that this was the cause of the double flowers. The germ-plasm is thus confessed to have 
been forced into conceiving a monstrosity of no use to the flower. If external influences 
can accomplish this, why cannot they bring about the establishment of a useful modifica- 
tion, like the long neck of a giraffe, z.e., in the same way by gradually modifying the 
germ-plasm through modification in the somatic-plasm? Hoffman's results were obtained 
gradually ‘in a greater or less number of generations.’ But this is all that Darwin would 
require.” 
