62 THE -ORIGIN OF SPECIES.' [1860 



so well adapted to tell on the readers of the Gardeners 

 Chronicle ; but now I admired it in another spirit. Farewell, 

 with hearty thanks. . . . Lyell is going at man with an au- 

 dacity that frightens me. It is a good joke ; he used always 

 to caution me to slip over man. 



[In the Gardeners' Chronicle, Jan. 21, 1860, appeared a 

 short letter from my father which was called forth by 

 Mr. Westwood's communication to the previous number of 

 the journal, in which certain phenomena of cross-breeding are 

 discussed in relation to the ' Origin of Species.' .Mr. West- 

 wood wrote in reply (Feb. n) and adduced further evidence 

 against the doctrine of descent, such as the identity of the 

 figures of ostriches on the ancient " Egyptian records," with 

 the bird as we now know it. The correspondence is hardly 

 worth mentioning, except as one of the very few cases in 

 which my father was enticed into anything resembling a con- 

 troversy.] 



Asa Gray to J. D. Hooker. 



Cambridge, Mass., 



January 5th, 1860. 



MY DEAR HOOKER, Your last letter, which reached me 

 just before Christmas, has got mislaid during the upturnings 

 in my study which take place at that season, and has not yet 

 been discovered. I should be very sorry to lose it, for there 

 were in it some botanical mems. which I had not secured. ... . 



The principal part of your letter was high laudation oi 

 Darwin's book. 



Well, the book has reached me, and I finished its careful 

 perusal four days ago ; and I freely say that your laudation 

 is not out of place. 



It is done in a masterly manner. It might well have taken 

 twenty years to produce it. It is crammed full of most inter- 

 esting matter thoroughly digested well expressed close, 

 cogent, and taken as a system it makes out a better case than 

 I had supposed possible. . . . 



