236 LIFE OF PROFESSOR HUXLEY CHAP. XII 



Gegenbaur and Vogt, went to the shores of the Medi- 

 terranean and made sad havoc with my novelties. Then 

 came occupations consequent on my appointment to the 

 chair I now hold ; and it was only last autumn that I 

 had leisure to take up the subject again. 



However, the plates, which I hope you will see in a 

 few months, have, with two exceptions, been engraved five 

 years. 



Pray make my remembrances to Dr. Eckhard. I was 

 sorry not to have seen him again in London. Ever, my 

 dear Sir, very faithfully yours, T. H. HUXLEY. 



Prof. Leuckart 



At this time Sir J. Hooker was writing, as an 

 introduction to his Flora of Tasmania, his essay on the 

 Flora of Australia, published in 1859 a book which 

 owed its form to the influence of Darwin, and in 

 return lent weighty support to evolutionary theory 

 from the botanical side. He sent his proofs for 

 Huxley to read. 



14 WATERLEY PLACE, N.W., 

 April 22, 1859. 



MY DEAR HOOKER I have read your proofs with a 

 great deal of attention and interest. I was greatly struck 

 with the suggestions in the first page, and the exposure of 

 the fallacy "that cultivated forms recur to wild types if 

 left alone " is new to me and seems of vast importance. 



The argument brought forward in the note is very 

 striking and as simple as the egg of Columbus, when one 

 sees it I have marked one or two passages which are 

 not quite clear to me. . . . 



I have been accused of writing papers composed of 

 nothing but heads of chapters, and I think you tend the 

 same way. Please take the trouble to make the two lines 

 I have scored into a paragraph, so that poor devils who 



