1 85 5.] MR. TEGETMEIER. 53 



appreciation of Mr. Tegetmeier's unstinting zeal and kindness, 

 or his " pure and disinterested love of science." On the 

 subject of hive-bees and their combs, Mr. Tegetmeier's help 

 was also valued by my father, who wrote, "your paper on 

 ' Bees-cells, 1 read before the British Association, was highly 

 useful and suggestive to me." 



To work out the problems on the Geographical Distri- 

 butions of animals and plants on evolutionary principles, he 

 had to study the means by which seeds, eggs, &c., can be 

 transported across wide spaces of ocean. It was this need 

 which gave an interest to the class of experiment to which 

 the following letters allude.] 



C. Darwin to W. D. Fox:. 



Down, May i;th [1855]. 



MY DEAR Fox, You will hate the very sight of my hand- 

 writing ; but after this time I promise I will ask for nothing 

 more, at least for a long time. As you live on sandy soil, 

 have you lizards at all common ? If you have, should you 

 think it too ridiculous to offer a reward for me for lizard's 

 eggs to the boys in your school ; a shilling for every half- 

 dozen, or more if rare, till you got two or three dozen and 

 send them to me ? If snake's eggs were brought in mistake 

 it would be very well, for I want such also ; and we have 

 neither lizards nor snakes about here. My object is to see 

 whether such eggs will float on sea water, and whether they 

 will keep alive thus floating for a month or two in my cellar. 

 I am trying experiments on transportation of all organic 

 beings that I can ; and lizards are found on every island, and 

 therefore I am very anxious to see whether their eggs stand 

 sea water. Of course this note need not be answered, without, 

 by a strange and favourable chance, you can some day answer 

 it with the eggs. Your most troublesome friend, 



C. DARWIN. 



