94 EVOLUTION [Chap. II 



Letter 48 Thank you for the Aristolochia and Viscutn cases: what 

 species were they ? I ask, because oddly these two very 

 genera I have seen advanced as instances (I forget at present 

 by whom, but by good men) in which the agency of insects 

 was absolutely necessary for impregnation. In our British 

 dioecious Viscutn I suppose it must be necessary. Was there 

 anything to show that the stigma was ready for pollen in these 

 two cases ? for it seems that there are many cases in which 

 pollen is shed long before the stigma is ready. As in our 

 Visaan, insects carry, sufficiently regularly for impregnation, 

 pollen from flower to flower, I should think that there must be 

 occasional crosses even in an hermaphrodite / 'iscum. I have 

 never heard of bees and butterflies, only moths, producing 

 fertile eggs without copulation. 



With respect to the Ray Society, I profited so enormously 

 by its publishing my Cirrepedia, that I cannot quite agree 

 with you on confining it to translations ; I know not how else 

 I could possibly have published. 



I have just sent in my name for £20 to the Linnaean Society, 

 but I must confess I have done it with heavy groans, whereas 

 I daresay you gave your £20 like a light-hearted gentle- 

 man. . . . 



P.S. Wollaston speaks strongly about the intermediate 

 grade between two varieties in insects and mollusca being 

 often rarer than the two varieties themselves. This is 

 obviously very important for me, and not easy to explain. I 

 believe I have had cases from you. But, if you believe in this, 

 I wish you would give me a sentence to quote from you on 

 this head. There must, I think, be a good deal of truth in it ; 

 otherwise there could hardly be nearly distinct varieties under 

 any species, for we should have instead a blending scries, as 

 in brambles and willows. 



Letter 49 To J- D - Hooker. 



July 13th, 1S56. 

 What a book a devil's chaplain might write on the clumsy, 

 wasteful, blundering, low, and horribly cruel works of nature ! 

 With respect to crossing, from one sentence in your letter I 

 think you misunderstand me. I am very far from believing 

 in hybrids : only in crossing of the same species or of close 



