Darwin Correspondence Project

Tuesday.

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Ten thousand thanks my dear Darwin for the most ungracious of all offices executed & in the most gracious manner. I do not think we have much to quarrell about.

The S^t Jago sentence is a case of bad Grammar, or something very like it I have made it now to mean that a scantier examination of S^t Jago has produced more plants than a more careful one of the Gals.

Confound the Compositæ; I do declare & maintain that, for the largest order in the world & the most ubiquitous, its individual species are less ubiquitous than they should be. I have been a dozen times at my wits' end (thank goodness it's not far to go) for expressive language— It is not that the Comp. have not many widely spread species but no great proportion of them in comparison to the bulk of the order.

I have remodelled the obnoxious sentence on props. of gen to sp. please return the enclosed if approved Ratios are most deceiving in Botany: plants are so much more widely dispersed than land animals, that small numerical differences must be received with thankful hearts. Also the prop. of gen. to sp. amongst all plants is only as 1:4: which latter figure diminishes with the area.

I have mesmerised the sentence about affinity between Juan F. & S^t Helena: but I maintain that it bears upon one of my conclusions anent Insular Peculiar Floras very directly:—that they have wholly inexplicable points of resemblance. I endeavour to draw a line between affinity & analogy, surely the former is the word when congeners are concerned.

Eheu the ugly sentence on the division of the plants. W. Indies Botanically speaking includes Panama: & I have put it in so; I used only the shortest sentences to avoid periphrasis, my besetting sin. How to get in Mexicos including [low^ld] &c &c &c under three breaths passes me, however here it goes & the L. Soc. may gasp till the windows are opened. I have also capsized or distorted the sentence to give prominence to your dear altered species:

I am thoroughly horrified at your not comprehending the table, but not believe me in the smallest surprized: of all the crabbed papers it is the crabbeddest: & how you got so far with any powers of comprehension left is the wonder. The 2^d column I have made to read “Total xclud. those common to America”.. As every Pacific Galap. plant is also American, there is no use bothering further about the Cannibal Isld^s.— Perhaps it w^d be better to say simply “confined to Galapagos”

The third column cannot be 96–15; because 15 indicates those “confined to group but found likewise on other Islets”: whereas 3^d col. indicates the whole number of species including some America, but xcluding such American as are (like the Galaps.) common to other Islets. It is however I clearly (as clearly as such a woolly brained