Dear Darwin

A thousand thanks for your criticisms—² It is not merely that there are no Boreal or Arctic plants in the Mts of Canaries &c, but no gentians, or any of the Alpine Spanish plants as Cruciferæ, Alsineæ, Compositæ &c &c—at least in so far as I believe. It is true there are species of Spartiums &c, which do not grow low down, but they are shrubs &c & do not seem to represent an alpine vegetation. But I must go through Webbs book & tabulate the altitudes &c.³

2. I tried hard so to arrange the sentence about savages in Islands, as that it should obviously not apply to Madeira & the Azores &c. I have not a copy by me, of the G. C., & fear I have failed somehow.⁴

Pray go on with such criticisms, they will be most useful

3 Of the groups of Islands with Insects I particularly remember Kerguelen’s land, with 5 insects one only winged, if I remember aright, (Dipterous), the moth was apterous and had rudimentary wings.— Ross. says only 5 insects, & 2 winged.⁵

In Auckland & Campbell’s Island again, winged Insects were very rare, Excepts

Diptera—(blood-suckers)

Fuegia ditto.

Falkland I forget—

Ascension—little but crickets⁶

Yes Annuals are certainly best adapted for short seasons, & they do abound in cultivated ground in the more equable climates⁷—but there are lots in the uncultivated districts of Australia, Asia Minor Levant—N. Africa & California, & it would not be easy to define their season as short   Whereas in Arctic regions, as I have somewhere remarked, there are none or next to none.—& in alpine regions there are very few indeed.

Yes—humid season implies equability, with which an evergreen vegetation is closely connected.⁸

I do remember some passages between us anent Bees & clover in N. Zealand & I don’t doubt I was quite right; in screaming at you at the time:⁹ indeed I cannot doubt it—. I could not have done so, you see, if you had not been wrong. Owen & the Bp of Oxford¹⁰ have accepted this, however, & so I do now believe in Bees & Clover, but not because you said it!— What I want to know now is, whether you have ever suggested to me that the rarity of irregular flowered plants in general or papilionaceæ in particular in Islands, was due to the rarity of winged insects. In plain truth I feel that I have begged borrowed & stolen such a lot from you, that my “meum & tuum” may well be vaguely limited

I must confess that I was (Fanny has just had a fine boy, excuse the interruption)¹¹ not surprized that your new book should require more space & be much bigger than the origin, & I think it is well that it should have a different form, too.¹² As to the size of the book being out of proportion to the subject, I do not see how that can well be— surely domesticated animals alone would fill a large volume under your treatment, & plants a larger even. This however is no reason why you should not swear at yourself & other book writers too— it can do no harm to yourself & may do great good to the latter

Mrs Hooker has presented me with a fine boy since this letter was begun, & is doing well

Ever yrs aff | J D Hooker

Plumbago not forgotten.¹³