314 LIFE AT DOWN. ^TAT. 33-45. 



as R. Brown once remarked to me, of certain plants being 

 calcareous ones here, which are not so under a more favour- 

 able climate on the Continent, or the reverse, for I forget 

 which ; but you, no doubt, will know to what I refer. By- 

 the-way, there are some such cases in Herbert's paper in the 

 * Horticultural Journal.' * Have you read it : it struck me as 

 extremely original, and bears directly on your present re- 

 searches.! To a 71071-botanist the chalk has the most peculiar 

 aspect of any flora in England ; why will you not come here 

 to make your observations "i We go to Southampton, if my 

 courage and stomach do not fail, for the Brit. Assoc. (Do 

 you not consider it your duty to be there .^) And why cannot 

 you come here afterward and work? .... 



The Monograph of the Cirripedia, 

 October 1846 to October 1854. 



[Writing to Sir J. D. Hooker in 1845, my father says : "I 

 hope this next summer to finish my South American Geology, 

 then to get out a little Zoology, and hurrah for my species 

 work. ..." This passage serves to show that he had at this 

 time no intention of making an exhaustive study of the Cir- 

 ripedes. Indeed it would seem that his original intention 

 was, as I learn from Sir J. D. Hooker, merely to work out one 

 special problem. This is quite in keeping with the following 

 passage in the Autobiography : *' When on the coast of Chile, 

 I found a most curious form, which burrowed into the shells 

 of Concholepas, and which differed so much from all other 

 Cirripedes that I had to form a new sub-order for its sole 

 reception. . . . To understand the structure of my new Cir- 

 ripede I had to examine and dissect many of the common 

 forms ; and this gradually led me on to take up the whole 

 group." In later years he seems to have felt some doubt as 

 to the value of these eight years of work, — for instance when 



* ' Journal of the Horticultural Society,' 1846. 



f Sir J. D. Hooker was at this time attending to polymorphism, varia- 

 bility, &c. 



