The Wallace-Darwin Correspondence 



Doum, Bromley, Kent, S.E. March 22, 1869. 



My dear Wallace, — I have finished your book.* It seems 

 to me excellent, and at the same time most pleasant to read. 

 That you ever returned alive is wonderful after all your risks 

 from illness and sea voyages, especially that most interest- 

 ing one to Waigiou and back. Of all the impressions which 

 I have received from your book, the strongest is that your 

 perseverance in the cause of science was heroic. Your de- 

 scriptions of catching the splendid butterflies have made me 

 quite envious, and at the same time have made me feel almost 

 young again, so vividly have they brought before my mind 

 old days when I collected, though I never made such cap- 

 tures as yours. Certainly collecting is the best sport in the 

 world. I shall be astonished if your book has not a great 

 success; and your splendid generalisations on geographical 

 distribution, with which I am familiar from your papers, 

 will be new to most of your readers. I think I enjoyed 

 most the Timor case, as it is best demonstrated; but per- 

 haps Celebes is really the most valuable. I should prefer 

 looking at the whole Asiatic continent as having formerly 

 been more African in its fauna, than admitting the former 

 existence of a continent across the Indian Ocean. Decaisne's 

 paper on the flora of Timor, in which he points out its close 

 relation to that of the Mascarene Islands, supports your 

 view. On the other hand, I might advance the giraffes, 

 etc., in the Sewalik deposits. How I wish someone would 

 collect the plants of Banca! The puzzle of Java, Sumatra 

 and Borneo is like the three geese and foxes : I have a wish 

 to extend Malacca through Banca to part of Java and thus 

 make three parallel peninsulas, but I cannot get the geese 

 and foxes across the river. 



Many parts of your book have interested me much : I 



1 " Malay Archipelago.'* 

 237 



