I8S9-] GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION. l6l 



But whether the book will be successful to a degree to satisfy 

 you, I really cannot conjecture. I heartily hope it may. 

 My dear Sir, yours very sincerely, 



C. DARWIN. 



C. Darwin to A. R. Wallace. 



Down, Aug. gth, 1859. 



MY DEAR MR. WALLACE, I received your letter and 

 memoir * on the /th, and will forward it to-morrow to the 

 Linnean Society. But you will be aware that there is no 

 meeting till the beginning of November. Your paper seems 

 to me admirable in matter, style, and reasoning ; and I thank 

 you for allowing me to read it. Had I read it some months 

 ago, I should have profited by it for my forthcoming volume. 

 But my two chapters on this subject are in type, and, though 

 not yet corrected, I am so wearied out and weak in health, 

 that I am fully resolved not to add one word, and merely 

 improve the style. So you will see that my views are nearly 

 the same with yours, and you may rely on it that not one 

 word shall be altered owing to my having read your ideas. 

 Are you aware that Mr. W. Earl \ [sic] published several years 

 ago the view of distribution of animals in the Malay Archi- 

 pelago, in relation to the depth of the sea between the islands ? 

 I was much struck with this, and have been in the habit of 

 noting all facts in distribution in that archipelago, and else- 

 where, in this relation. I have been led to conclude that 

 there has been a good deal of naturalisation in the different 

 Malay islands, and [this] I have thought, to a certain extent, 

 would account for anomalies. Timor has been my greatest 

 puzzle. What do you say to the peculiar Felis there ? I 

 wish that you had visited Timor ; it has been asserted that a 



* This seems to refer to Mr. pelago," ' Linn. Soc. Journ.,' 1860. 



Wallace's paper, " On the Zoological f Probably Mr. W. Earle's paper, 



Geography of the Malay Archi- Geographical Soc. Journal, 1845. 



VOL. II. M 



