1893 EVIDENCE FOR PHYSIOLOGICAL SELECTION 335 



severally peculiar to mountain tops and isolated 

 valleys. For in these cases there must be much 

 doubt, as a general rule, touching the species having 

 been differentiated by topographical isolation upon 

 the particular areas where they are now found. 

 Moreover, and this I think quite as important, 

 the consideration which Darwin adduces in another 

 connection is obviated, viz. i that if a species was 

 rendered sterile with some one compatriot, sterility 

 with other species would follow as a necessary con- 

 tingency.' 



Yours very sincerely, 



G. J. EOMANES. 



P.S. From your first letter it would almost seem 

 that you had supposed me to doubt the fact (or, at 

 any rate, the frequency) of cross-fertility in general. 

 And this after I had written the article on ' Hybridi- 

 sation ' in the l Ency. Brit.' ! 



In June Mr. Komanes took a small house for the 

 summer months outside Oxford at Boar's Hill, a 

 district well known to Oxford people, and it was hoped 

 country air and quiet might do him much good. 



He was rather headachy, and liked to lie on the 

 grass in the garden and have novels read to him, but 

 he w r as able to go up to London one day, and even 

 planned to take a journey to Wiesbaden in order to 

 consult an eminent oculist. 



But on July 11 he was stricken down by hemi- 

 plegia. And now began the last year of patient 

 endurance, for from that time the Shadow of Death 

 was ever on him, and he knew it ; from that July 

 day he regarded himself as doomed. Sometimes the 



