i864— 1869] REIGN OF LAW 283 



that each variation which appears is a strongly marked Letter 203 

 one ; though by implication you have made this very plain. 

 Nothing in your whole article has struck me more than your 

 view with respect to the limit of flcetness in the racehorse 

 and other such cases : I shall try and quote you on this head 

 in the proof of my concluding chapter. I quite missed this 

 explanation, though in the case of wheat I hit upon something 

 analogous. I am glad you praise the Duke's book, for I was 

 much struck with it. The part about flight seemed to me at 

 first very good ; but as the wing is articulated by a ball-and- 

 socket joint, I suspect the Duke would find it very difficult to 

 give any reason against the belief that the wing strikes the 

 air more or less obliquely. I have been very glad to see your 

 article and the drawing of the butterfly in Science Gossip. 

 By the way, I cannot but think that you push protection too 

 far in some cases, as with the stripes on the tiger. I have also 

 this morning read an excellent abstract in the Gardeners' 

 Chronicle of your paper on nests. 1 I was not by any means 

 fully converted by your letter, but I think now I am so ; and 

 I hope it will be published somewhere in extenso. It strikes 

 me as a capital generalisation, and appears to me even more 

 original than it did at first. . . . 



I have finished Volume I. of my book [Variation of 

 Animals and Plants'], and I hope the whole will be out by 

 the end of November. If you have the patience to read it 

 through, which is very doubtful, you will find, I think, a large 

 accumulation of facts which will be of service to you in 

 future papers ; and they could not be put to better use, for 

 you certainly are a master in the noble art of reasoning. 



To T. H. Huxley. Letter 204 



Down, Oct. 3rd [no date]. 

 I know you have no time for speculative correspondence ; 

 and I did not in the least expect an answer to my last. But 

 I am very glad to have had it, for in my eclectic work the 

 opinions of the few good men are of great value to me. 



of a racehorse. On this Mr. Wallace remarks that "this argument fails 

 to meet the real question," which is, not whether indefinite change is 

 possible, " but whether such differences as do occur in nature could have 

 been produced by the accumulation of variations by selection." 



1 An abstract of a paper on " Birds' Nests and Plumage," read before 

 the British Association : see Gard. Chron., 1867, p. 1047. 



