3^4 



LIFE AT DOWN. ^TAT. 33-45. 



[1848. 



done good service in calling more attention to the subject of 

 the terraces. He protests it is unfair to call the sinking of 

 the sea his theory, for that he with care always speaks of mere 

 change of level, and this is quite true ; but the one section in 

 which he shows how he conceives the sea might sink is so 

 astonishing, that I believe it will with others, as with me, 

 more than counterbalance his previous caution. I hope that 

 you may think better of the book than I do. 



Yours most truly, 



C. DARWIN. 



C. Darwin to J. D. Hooker. 



October 6th, 1848. 



... I have lately been trying to get up an agitation (but 

 I shall not succeed, and indeed doubt whether I have time 

 and strength to go on with it), against the practice of 

 Naturalists appending for perpetuity the name of the first 

 describer to species. I look at this as a direct premium to 

 hasty work, to naming instead of describing. A species ought 

 to have a name so well known that the addition of the author's 

 name would be superfluous, and a [piece] of empty vanity.* 



* His contempt for the self-re- 

 garding spirit in a naturalist is 

 illustrated by an anecdote, for which 

 I am indebted to Rev. L. Blome- 

 field. After speaking of my father's 

 love of Entomology at Cambridge, 

 Mr. Blomefield continues : " He 

 occasionally came over from Cam- 

 bridge to my Vicarage at Swaff ham 

 Bulbeck, and we went out together 

 to collect insects in the woods at 

 Bottisham Hall, close at hand, or 

 made longer excursions in the Fens. 

 On one occasion he captured in a 

 large bag net, with which he used 

 vigorously to sweeo the weeds and 

 long grass, a rare coleopterous in- 

 sect, one of the Lepturidce, which I 

 myself had never taken in Cam- 



bridgeshire. He was pleased with 

 his capture, and of course carried 

 it home in triumph. Some years 

 afterwards, the voyage of the Beagle 

 having been made in the interim., 

 talking over old times with him, I 

 reverted to this circumstance, and 

 asked if he remembered it. ' Oh 

 yes,' (he said,) ' I remember it well ; 

 and I was selfish enough to keep 

 the specimen, when you were col- 

 lecting materials for a Fauna of 

 Cambridgeshire, and for a local 

 museum in the Philosophical 

 Society.' He followed this up with 

 some remarks on the pettiness of 

 collectors, who aimed at nothing 

 beyond filling their cabinets with 

 rare things." 



