i860.] DESIGN. l ^ 



P.S. I must tell you one little fact which has pleased 

 me. You may remember that I adduce electrical organs of 

 fish as one of the greatest difficulties which have occurred 

 to me, and notices the passage in a singularly disingenu- 

 ous spirit. Well, McDonnell, of Dublin (a first-rate man), 

 writes to me that he felt the difficulty of the whole case as 

 overwhelming against me. Not only are the fishes which 

 have electric organs very remote in scale, but the organ is 

 near the head in some, and near the tail in others, and 

 supplied by wholly different nerves. It seems impossible 

 that there could be any transition. Some friend, who is 

 much opposed to me, seems to have crowed over McDonnell, 

 who reports that he said to himself, that if Darwin is right, 

 there must be homologous organs both near the head and tail 

 in other non-electric fish. He set to work, and, by Jove, 

 he has found them ! * so that some of the difficulty is re- 

 moved ; and is it not satisfactory that my hypothetical no- 

 tions should have led to pretty discoveries ? McDonnell 

 seems very cautious ; he says, years must pass before he will 

 venture to call himself a believer in my doctrine, but that on 

 the subjects which he knows well, viz., Morphology and Em- 

 bryology, my views accord well, and throw light on the whole 

 subject. 



C. Darwin to Asa Gray. 



Down, November 26th, 1860. 



MY DEAR GRAY, I have to thank you for two letters. 

 The latter with corrections, written before you received my 

 letter asking for an American reprint, and saying that it was 

 hopeless to print your reviews as a pamphlet, owing to the 

 impossibility of getting pamphlets known. I am very glad 

 to say that the August or second ' Atlantic ' article has been 

 reprinted in the * Annals and Magazine of Natural History ' ; 



* ' On an organ in the Skate, which appears to be the homologue of the 

 electrical organ of the Torpedo,' by R. McDonnell, ' Nat. Hist. Review/ 



1861, p. 57. 



