220 



MY LIFE 



[Chap. 



primulas, and stony passes from which the snow had just 

 retreated. On the Strela pass, about eight thousand feet, I 

 found some charming little alpines I had not seen before, 

 among them the very dwarf Viola alpina, growing among 

 stones, the leaves hardly visible and the comparatively large 

 flat flowers of a very deep blue-purple, with a large orange- 

 yellow eye. This is peculiar to the Eastern Alps, and seems 

 difficult to cultivate, as few dealers have it in their lists. I 

 sent home a few plants, but could not succeed in keeping 

 them alive. 



On leaving Davos, I made my way across to Adelboden, 

 where my wife and daughter, with some friends, were staying. 

 This is surrounded with fine alpine peaks and snow-fields, and 

 though the weather was unsettled we spent a pleasant week 

 here — probably the last visit I shall make to ever-delightful 

 Switzerland — the sanatorium and alpine garden of overworked 

 Englishmen. 



From this time onwards I did not write many articles or 

 reviews, the more important being " The Problem of Instinct," 

 in 1897, in which I gave an attempted solution of bird migra- 

 tion, though the article was really a review of Professor Lloyd- 

 Morgan's " Habit and Instinct ; " an article on the question 

 whether " White men can work in the Tropics," which most 

 English writers declare to be impossible without thinking it 

 necessary to adduce evidence, but which, I affirm, is proved by 

 experience to be quite easy. Both these are reprinted in my 

 " Studies," as is also a short essay on " The Causes of War 

 and the Remedies," written for U Htcmanite Nouvelle. I also 

 wrote letters to the Daily Chronicle on ArnQxicdi^ Cuba, and the 

 Philippines ; and a protest against the Transvaal War in the 

 Manchester Guardian. 



In the year 1900^^ I wrote an article for the New York 

 Journal on "Social Evolution in the Twentieth Century — 

 An Anticipation," for which I received a very complimentary 

 letter from the editor. During the next two years I was en- 

 gaged in preparing new editions of my books on " Darwinism " 

 and " Island Life," and I also wrote several letters on political 

 and social subjects, such as an " Appreciation of the Past 



