228 EVOLUTION [Chap. Ill 



Letter 155 been assured by Mr. Wallace that abundant Mastodon 

 remains have been found at Timor, and that is rather close to 

 Australia. I rejoice that you have smashed that case. 1 It is 

 indeed a grand paper. I will say nothing more about your 

 allflsions to me, except that they have pleased me quite as 

 much in print as in MS. You must have worked very hard ; 

 the labour must have been extreme, but I do hope that you 

 will have health and strength to go on. You would laugh if 

 you could see how indignant all Owen's mean conduct about 

 E. Coin vibi- made me. I did not get to sleep till past 

 3 o'clock. How well you lash him, firmly and severely, with 

 unruffled temper, as if you were performing a simple duty. 

 The case is come to such a pass, that I think every man of 

 science is bound to show his feelings by some overt act, and I 

 shall watch for a fitting opportunity. 



P.S. — I have kept back for a day the enclosed owing to 

 the arrival of your most interesting letter. I knew it was a 

 mere chance whether you could inform me on the points 

 required ; but no one other person has so often responded to 

 my miscellaneous queries. I believe I have now in my green- 

 house L. trigynum? which came up from seed purchased as 

 L. flavum, from which it is wholly different in foliage. I have 

 just sent in a paper on Dimorphism of Linunt to the Linnean 

 Society, 4 and so I do not doubt your memory is right about 

 L. trigynum : the functional difference in the two forms of 

 Linum is really wonderful. I assure you I quite long to see 

 you and a few others in London ; it is not so much the eczema 

 which has taken the epidermis a dozen times clean off; but 

 I have been knocked up of late with extraordinary facility, 

 and when I shall be able to come up I know not. I 

 particularly wish to hear about the wondrous bird : the case 



1 In the paper in the Nat. Hist. Review (loc. at.) Falconer writes : 

 " It seems more probable that some unintentional error has got mixed up 

 with the history of this remarkable fossil ; and until further confirmatory- 

 evidence is adduced, of an unimpeachable character, faith cannot be 

 reposed in the reality of the asserted Australian Afastodon" (p. 101). 



8 See Letter 157. 



3 Linum trigynum. 



4 " On the Existence of the Forms, and on their reciprocal Sexual 

 Relation, in several species of the genus Linum. — Journ. Linn. Soc, 

 Vol. VII., p. 69, 1864. 



