454 GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION [Chap. VI 



Letter 345 Whence these very ancient forms originally proceeded seems 

 a hopeless enquiry. 



Your remarks on the passage of the northern forms 

 southward, and of the southern forms of no kinds passing 

 northward, seem to mc grand. Admirable, also, are your 

 remarks on the struggle of vegetation : I find that I have 

 rather misunderstood you, for I feared I differed from you, 

 which I see is hardly the case at all. I cannot help suspecting 

 that you put rather too much weight to climate in the case 

 of Australia. La Plata seems to present such analogous 

 facts, though I suppose the naturalisation of European 

 plants has there taken place on a still larger scale than 

 in Australia. . . . 



You will get four copies of my book — one for self, and 

 three for the foreign botanists — in about ten days, or sooner ; 

 i.e., as soon as the sheets can be bound in cloth. I hope this 

 will not be too late for your parcels. 



When you read my volume, use your pencil and score, so 

 that some time I may have a talk with you on any criticisms. 



Letter 346 To Hugh Falconer. 



Down, Dec. 17th, [1859]. 

 Whilst I think of it, let me tell you that years ago I 

 remember seeing in the Museum of the Geological Society 

 a tooth of hippopotamus ' from Madagascar : this, on geo- 

 graphical and all other grounds, ought to be looked to. 

 Pray make a note of this fact. We have returned a week 

 ago from Ilkley, and it has done me some decided good. In 

 London I saw Lyell (the poor man who has " rushed into the 

 bosom of two heresies " — by the way, 1 saw his celts, and 



1 At a meeting of the Geological Society, May 1st, 1833, a letter was 

 read from Mr. Telfair to Sir Alex. Johnstone, accompanying a specimen 

 of recent conglomerate rock, from the island of Madagascar, containing 

 fragments of a tusk, and part of a molar tooth of a hippopotamus 

 (Proc. Geo/. Soc, 1833, p. 479). There is a reference to these remains 

 of hippopotamus in a paper by Mr. R. B. Newton in the Geo/. Mag., 

 Vol. X., 1893 ; and in Dr. Forsyth Major's memoir on Megaladapis 

 Madagascariensis {Phil. Trans. R. Soc, Vol. 185, p. 30, 1S94). 



Since this letter was written, several bones belonging to two or 

 possibly three species of hippopotamus have been found in Madagascar. 

 See Forsyth Major, " On the General Results of a Zoological Expedition 

 to Madagascar in 1894-96" (J 'roc. Zool. Soc, 1896, p. 971). 



