102 EVOLUTION [Chap. II 



Letter 56 to the trouble any question may take, whether you think it 

 worth while — as all loss of time so far lessens your original 

 work — to give me facts to be quoted on your authority in my 

 work. Do not think I shall be disappointed if you cannot 

 spare time ; for already I have profited enormously from 

 your judgment and knowledge. I earnestly beg you to act 

 as I suggest, and not take trouble solely out of good-nature. 



My point is as follows : Harvey gives the case of Fucus 

 varying remarkably, and yet in same way under most 

 different conditions. D. Don makes same remark in regard 

 to Juncus bufonius in England and India. Polygala vulgaris 

 has white, red, and blue flowers in Faroe, England, and I 

 think Herbert says in Zante. Now such cases seem to me 

 very striking, as showing how little relation some variations 

 have to climatal conditions. 



Do you think there are many such cases ? Does Oxalis 

 corniculata present exactly the same varieties under very 

 different climates? 



How is it with any other British plants in New Zealand, 

 or at the foot of the Himalaya? Will you think over this 

 and let me hear the result? 



One other question : do you remember whether the 

 introduced Sonchus in New Zealand was less, equally, or 

 more common than the aboriginal stock of the same species, 

 where both occurred together? I forget whether there is 

 any other case parallel with this curious one of the Sonchus .... 



I have been making good, though slow, progress with my 

 book, for facts have been falling nicely into groups, enlighten- 

 ing each other. 



Letter 57 To T. H. Huxley. 



Moor Park, Farnham, Surrey [1857?]. 



Your letter has been forwarded to me here, where I am 

 profiting by a few weeks' rest and hydropathy. Your letter 

 has interested and amused me much. I am extremely glad 

 you have taken up the Aphis 1 question, but, for Heaven's sake, 



1 Professor Huxley's paper on the organic reproduction of Aphis is in 

 the Trans. Linn. Soc, XXII. (1858), p. 193. Prof. Owen had treated the 

 subject in his introductory Hunterian lecture On Parthenogenesis (1849). 

 His theory cannot be fully given here. Briefly, he holds that partheno- 

 genesis is due to the inheritance of a "remnant of spermatic virtue": 



