1844—1858] L. 13L0MEFIELD 49 



though not the facts, ought to shame Sedgwick) that Vestiges Letter 16 

 considers all land-animals and plants to have passed from 

 marine forms ; so Chambers is quite in accordance. Did 

 you hear Forbes, when here, giving the rather curious 

 evidence (from a similarity in error) that Chambers must be 

 the author of the Vestiges : your case strikes me as some 

 confirmation. I have written an unreasonably long and dull 

 letter, so farewell. 



To L. Rlomefield [Jenyns]. 1 Letter 17 



Down. Fl-Ij. 14th [1845]. 



I have taken my leisure in thanking you for your last 



letter and discussion, to me very interesting, on the increase 



of species. Since your letter, I have met with a very similar 



view in Richardson, who states that the young are driven 



1 The following sketch of the life of Rev. Leonard Blomefield 

 (formerly Jenyns) is taken from his Chapters in my Life ; Reprint with 

 Additions (privately printed), Bath, 1889. He was born, as he states 

 with characteristic accuracy, at 10 p.m., May 25th, 1800 ; and died a* 

 Bath, Sept. 1st, 1893. His father — a second cousin of Soame Jenyns, from 

 whom he inherited Bottisham Hall, in Cambridgeshire — was a parson- 

 squire of the old type, a keen sportsman, and a good man of business. 

 Leonard Jenyns' mother was a daughter of the celebrated Dr. Heberden, 

 in whose house in Pall Mall he was born. Leonard was educated at Eton 

 and Cambridge, and became curate of Swaffham Bulbeck, a village close 

 to his father's property ; he was afterwards presented to the Vicarage of 

 the parish, and held the living for nearly thirty years. The remainder of 

 his life he spent at Bath. He was an excellent field-naturalist and a 

 minute and careful observer. Among his writings may be mentioned 

 the Fishes in Zoology of the Voyage of the " Beagle" 1842, a Manual. 

 of British Vertebrate Animals, 1836, a Memoir of Professor Henslow, 

 1862, to which Darwin contributed recollections of his old master, 

 Observatio?is in Natural History, 1846, and Observations in Meteorology, 

 1858, besides numerous papers in scientific journals. In his Chaplers'he 

 describes himself as showing as a boy the silent and retiring nature, and 

 also the love of "order, method, and precision," which characterised him 

 through life ; and he adds, " even to old age I have been often called a 

 very particular gentleman:' In a hitherto unpublished passage in his 

 autobiographical sketch, Darwin wrote, "At first I disliked him, from his 

 somewhat grim and sarcastic expression ; and it is not often that a first 

 impression is lost ; but I was completely mistaken, and found him very 

 kind-hearted, pleasant, and with a good stock of humour." Mr. Jenyns 

 records that as a boy he was by a stranger taken for a son of his uncle, 

 Dr. Heberden (the younger), whom he closely resembled. 



4 



