DARWIN AND BATES'S MEMOIR 125 



that I passed over the whole subject in the Origin, for I 

 should have made a precious mess of it. You have most 

 clearly stated and solved a wonderful problem. . . . Your 

 paper is too good to be largely appreciated by the mob of 

 naturalists without souls ; but, rely on it, that it will have 

 lasting value, and I cordially congratulate you on your first 

 great work. You will find, I should think, that Wallace 

 will fully appreciate it. ' x 



Four days later, Nov. 24, Darwin wrote to 

 Hooker on the same subject : 



' I have now finished this paper . . . ; it seems to me 

 admirable. To my mind the act of segregation of varieties 

 into species was never so plainly brought forward, and there 

 are heaps of capital miscellaneous observations.' J 



Darwin was here referring to the tendency of 

 similar varieties of the same species to pair 

 together, and on Nov. 25 he wrote to Bates asking 

 for fuller information on this subject. 3 If Bates's 

 opinion were well founded, Sexual Selection would 

 bear a most important part in the establishment 

 of such species. 4 It must be admitted, however, 

 that the evidence is as yet quite insufficient to 

 establish this conclusion. It is interesting to 

 observe how Darwin at once fixed on the part of 

 Bates's memoir which seemed to bear upon Sexual 

 Selection. A review of Bates's theory of Mimicry 

 was contributed by Darwin to the Natural History 



1 Life and Letters, ii. 391-3. 



2 More Letters, i. 214. 



3 More Letters, i. 215. See also parts of Darwin's letter to Bates 

 in Life and Letters, ii. 392. 



* See Poulton, Essays on Evolution, 1908, 65, 85-8. 



