i . [US DARW1 N 4_'3 



delighted tu hear, and with surprise, that you care about old U 

 Erasmus D. God only knows what I .shall make of his life — 

 it is such new kind of work to me. 1 



Thanks for ca^c of sleeping Crotalaria — new to me. I 

 quite agree to ever}- word you say about Ball's lecture 2 — it 

 is, as you say, like Sir \V. Thomson's meteorite. 3 It is really 

 a pity; it is enough to make Geographical Distribution 

 ridiculous in the eyes of the world. Frank will be interested 

 about the Auriculas 1 ; I never attended to this plant, for 

 the powder did [not] seem to me like true "bloom." '1 his 

 subject, however, for the present only, has gone to the dogs 

 with me. 



I am sorry to hear of such a struggle for existence at Kew ; 

 but I have oft* n wondered how it is that yi u are all not 

 killed outright. 



I can most fully sympathise with you in your admiration 

 of your little girl. There is nothing so charming in this 

 world, and we all in this house humbly adore our grandchild, 

 and think his little pimple of a nose quite beautiful. 



To G. Bentham. Letter 



Down, Feb. 16th. iSSo. 

 I have had real pleasure in signing Dyer's certificate.'' It 

 was very kind in you to write to me about the Orchideae, for 

 it has pleased me to an extreme degree that I could have 

 been of the least use to you about the nature of the parts. 

 They are wonderful creatures, these orchids, and I sometimes 

 think with a glow of pleasure, when I remember making out 

 some little point in their method of fertilisati< With 



respect to terms, no doubt you will be able to improve them 



1 Erasmus Darwin. By Ernst Krause. Translated from the German 

 by W. S. Dallas: with a preliminary notice by Charles Darwin. 

 London, 1879. See Life and j . III., pp. 218 20. 



1 "On the Origin o\ the Flora of the European Alp-. 

 Proc. t Vol. L, 1879, p. 564. See Letter 395, Vol. II. 



■ In 1871 Lord Kelvin (Presidential Address Brit. Assoc.) suggested 

 that meteorites, "the moss-yrown fragments from the ruins of another 

 world,'" might have introduced life to our planet. 



4 See Francis Darwin, on the relation between "bloom*' on leaves 

 and the distribution of the stomata. Linn. Sac. ft urn., Vol. XXII., p. 114. 



• s As a candidate for the Royal Society. 



6 Published in Life and Letters, III., p. 288. 



