Alfred Russel Wallace 



suggestions, if not always the best, at least show thought on 

 what he has observed. 



I was most pleased with his demonstration as to the sup- 

 posed instincts of young birds and lambs, showing clearly 

 that the former at all events are not due to inherited ex- 

 perience, as Darwin thought. The whole book, too, is per- 

 vaded by such a true love of nature and such a perception 

 of its marvels and mysteries as to be unique in my experience. 

 The modern scientific morphologists seem so wholly occupied 

 in tracing out the mechanism of organisms that they hardly 

 seem to appreciate the overwhelming marvel of the powers of 

 life, which result in such infinitely varied structures and such 

 strange habits and so-called instincts. The older I grow the 

 more marvellous seem to me the mere variety of form and 

 habit in plants and animals, and the unerring certitude with 

 which from a minute germ the whole complex organism is 

 built up, true to the type of its kind in all the infinitude of 

 details ! It is this which gives such a charm to the watching 

 of plants growing, and of kittens so rapidly developing their 

 senses and habitudes ! . . . — Yours very faithfully, 



Alfred E. Wallace. 



To Prof. Poulton 



Parkstone, Dorset. Febmary 1, 1803. 



My dear Poulton, — Thanks for the separate copy of your 

 great paper on colours of larva, pupa, etc.^ I have read 

 your conclusions and looked over some of the experiments, 

 and think you have now pretty well settled that question. 



I am reading through the new volume of the Life of 

 Darwin, and am struck with the curious example his own 

 case affords of non-heredity of acquired variations. He 

 expresses his constant dread — one of the troubles of his 



» Trans. EnL Soc, London, 1892, p. 293. 

 54 



