332 DESCENT OF MAN '—EXPRESSION. [1872. 



and size — it consists of 458 pp. instead of 596 pp. and is 

 a few ounces lighter ; it is printed on bad paper, in small 

 type, and with the lines unpleasantly close together. It had, 

 however, one advantage over previous editions, namely that 

 it was issued at a lower price. It is to be regretted that this 

 the final edition of the ' Origin ' should have appeared in 

 so unattractive a form ; a form which has doubtless kept off 

 many readers from the book. 



The discussion suggested by the ' Genesis of Species ' was 

 perhaps the most important addition to the book. The ob- 

 jection that incipient structures cannot be of use was dealt 

 with in some detail, because it seemed to the author that 

 this was the point in Mr. Mivart's book which has struck 

 most readers in England. 



It is a striking proof of how wide and general had become 

 the acceptance of his views that my father found it necessary 

 to insert (sixth edition, p. 424), the sentence : "As a record 

 of a former state of things, I have retained in the foregoing 

 paragraphs and also elsewhere, several sentences which imply 

 that naturalists believe in the separate creation of each 

 species ; and I have been much censured for having thus 

 expressed myself. But undoubtedly this was the general 

 belief when the first edition of the present work appeared. . . 

 Now things are wholly changed, and almost every naturalist 

 admits the great principle of evolution." 



A small correction introduced into this sixth edition is 

 connected with one of his minor papers : " Note on the habits 

 of the Pampas Woodpecker." * In the fifth edition of the 

 ' Origin,' p. 220, he wrote : — 



" Yet as I can assert not only from my own observation, 

 but from that of the accurate Azara, it [the ground wood- 

 pecker] never climbs a tree." The paper in question was a 

 reply to Mr. Hudson's remarks on the woodpecker in a pre- 

 vious number of the same journal. The last sentence of 

 my father's paper is worth quoting for its temperate tone : 



* Zoolog. Soc. Proc, 1870. 



