The Wallace-Darwin Correspondence 



point will be held to show that you consider them so ! 

 The contrivance in Utricularia and Dioniea, and in fact 

 in Drosera too, seems fully as great and complex as 

 in Orchids, but there is not the same motive force. Fer- 

 tilisation and cross-fertilisation are important ends enough 

 to lead to any modification, but can we suppose mere 

 nourishment to be so important, seeing that it is so easily 

 and almost universally obtained by extrusion of roots and 

 leaves ? Here are plants which lose their roots and leaves 

 to acquire the same results by infinitely complex modes ! 

 What a wonderful and long-continued series of variations 

 must have led up to the perfect ^' trap " in Utricularia, 

 while at any stage of the process the same end might 

 have been gained by a little more development of roots 

 and leaves, as in 9,999 plants out of 10,000 ! 



Is this an imaginary difficulty, or do you mean to deal 

 with it in future editions of the '' Origin " ? — Believe me 

 yours very faithfully, Alfred E. Wallace. 



The Dell, Grays , Essex. November 7, 1875. 



Dear Darwin, — Many thanks for your beautiful little 

 volume on ^^ Climbing Plants," which forms a most interest- 

 ing companion to your '' Orchids " and '^ Insectivorous 

 Plants.'' I am sorry to see that you have not this time 

 given us the luxury of cut edges. 



I am in the midst of printing and proof-sheets, which 

 are wearisome in the extreme from the mass of names and 

 statistics I have been obliged to introduce, and which will, 

 I fear, make my book insufferably dull to all but zoological 

 specialists. 



My trust is in my pictures and maps to catch the public. 



Hoping yourself and all your family are quite well, 

 believe me yours very faithfully, Alfred E. Wallace. 



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