1 862.] BOOKS MIMICRY. 



183 



make great use of the subject in illustration.* What pretty 

 metaphors you would make from it ! I wish some one would 

 keep a lot of the most noisy monkeys, half free, and study 

 their means of communication ! 



A book has just appeared here which will, I suppose, 

 make a noise, by Bishop Colenso,f who, judging from ex- 

 tracts, smashes most of the Old Testament. Talking of 

 books, I am in the middle of one which pleases me, though 

 it is very innocent food, viz., Miss Cooper's ' Journal of a 

 Naturalist.' Who is she? She seems a very clever woman, 

 and gives a capital account of the battle between our and 

 your weeds. Does it not hurt your Yankee pride that we 

 thrash you so confoundedly? I am sure Mrs. Gray will 

 stick up for your own weeds. Ask her whether they are not 

 more honest, downright good sort of weeds. The book gives 

 an extremely pretty picture of one of your villages ; but I see 

 your autumn, though so much more gorgeous than ours, comes 

 on sooner, and that is one comfort 



C. Darwin to H. W. "Bates. 



Down, Nov. 20 [1862]. 



DEAR BATES, I have just finished, after several reads, 

 your paper. J In my opinion it is one of the most remarkable 



* Language was treated in the manner here indicated by Sir C. Lyell 

 in the ' Antiquity of Man.' Also by Prof. Schleicher, whose pamphlet was 

 fully noticed in the Reader, Feb. 27, 1864 (as I learn from one of Prof. 

 Huxley's 'Lay Sermon's'). 



f ' The Pentateuch and Book of Joshua critically examined,' six parts, 

 1862-71. 



\ This refers to Mr. Bates's paper, " Contributions to an Insect Fauna 

 of the Amazons Valley " (' Linn. Soc. Trans.' xxiii., 1862), in which the now 

 familiar subject of mimicry was founded. My father wrote a short review 

 of it in the ' Natural History Review,' 1863, p. 219, parts of which occur 

 in this review almost verbatim in the later editions of the ' Origin of Spe- 

 cies.' A striking passage occurs showing the difficulties of the case from a 

 creationist's point of view : 



" By what means, it may be asked, have so many butterflies of the Ama- 

 zonian region acquired their deceptive dress ? Most naturalists will answer 



