The Wallace-Darwin Correspondence 



Postscript Down. April 29, 



My dear Wallace, — On reading over your letter again, 

 and on further reflection, I do not think (as far as I re- 

 member my words) that I expressed myself nearly strongly 

 enough as to the value and beauty of your generalisation, 

 viz. that all birds in which the female is conspicuously or 

 brightly coloured build in holes or under domes. I thought 

 that this was the explanation in many, perhaps most cases, 

 but do not think I should ever have extended my view to 

 your generalisation. Forgive me troubling you with this 

 P.S.— Yours, Ch. Darwin. 



Doim, Bromley, Kent, S.E, May 5, 1867. i 



My dear Wallace, — The offer of your valuable notes is most 

 generous, but it would vex me to take so much from you, 

 as it is certain that you could work up the subject very 

 much better than I could. Therefore I earnestly and with- 

 out any reservation hope that you will proceed with your 

 paper, so that I return your notes. 



You seem already to have well investigated the subject. 

 I confess on receiving your note that I felt rather flat at 

 my recent work being almost thrown away, but I did not 

 intend to show this feeling. As a proof how little advance 

 I had made on the subject, I may mention that though I 

 had been collecting facts on the colouring and other sexual 

 differences in mammals, your explanation with respect to 

 the females had not occurred to me. I am surprised at my 

 own stupidity, but I have long recognised how much clearer 

 and deeper your insight into matters is than mine. — ^ 



I do not know how far you have attended to the laws 1 

 of inheritance, so what follows may be obvious to you. I ' 

 have begun my discussion on sexual selection by showing 

 that new characters often appear in one sex and are 



185 '--" 



