252 MISCELLANEA (continued^. [1882; 



has given me. I have rarely read anything which has inte- 

 rested me more, though I have not read as yet more than a 

 quarter of the book proper. 



From quotations which I had seen, I had a high notion of 

 Aristotle's merits, but I had not the most remote notion what 

 a wonderful man he was. Linnaeus and Cuvier have been 

 my two gods, though in very different ways, but they were 

 mere schoolboys to old Aristotle. How very curious, also,, 

 his ignorance on some points, as on muscles as the means of 

 movement. I am glad that you have explained in so probable 

 a manner some of the grossest mistakes attributed to him. I 

 never realized, before reading your book, to what an enormous 

 summation of labour we owe even our common knowledge. 

 I wish old Aristotle could know what a grand Defender of 

 the Faith he had found in you. Believe me, my dear Dr. 

 Ogle, 



Yours very sincerely, 



CH. DARWIN. 



[In February, he received a letter and a specimen from a 

 Mr. W. D. Crick, which illustrated a curious mode of dispersal 

 of bivalve shells, namely, by closure of their valves so as to 

 hold on to the leg of a water-beetle. This class of fact had 

 a special charm for him, and he wrote to ' Nature ' describing 

 the case.* 



In April, he received a letter from Dr. W. Van Dyck,. 

 Lecturer in Zoology at the Protestant College of Beyrout. 

 The letter showed that the street dogs of Beyrout had been 

 rapidly mongrelised by introduced European dogs, and the 

 facts have an interesting bearing on my father's theory of 

 Sexual Selection.] 



* 'Nature/ April 6, 1882. 



