My dear Hooker

Busy as you always are, it was really very good of you to write me so long a letter, some ten days ago,¹ telling me so very many things to interest me.— Yesterday I had to send to the Athenæum, so I thought I could send at same time my Barnacle Book,² & Rejuvenescence &c;³ there, directed to you.—

I am very glad you wish to have my Barnacle Book, for I would rather send it to you than to any half-dozen-others, if you cared to have it. Our old friend Arthrobalanus is now christened Cryptophialus.⁴ Under the Order to which it belongs, I discuss the (as it appears to me) very curious case of its affinities; I was most uncomfortably puzzled how to class it, & am far from sure that I decided correctly.—⁵

You will find a great deal about what is an individual in Braun: ever since seeing years ago with you here, the purple Laburnum,⁶ in which even the petals consisted of half & half, I have looked, without any gain, to all that I could read about individuality. What you say on the seed, is the newest view, which I have met with.—

But I cannot say that I have really read Braun.—

I thank you particularly for Huxley’s review⁷ it is exquisite & most clever, all about Owen.— The Review part strikes me as the best I have seen, on poor Vestiges, but I think he is too severe,—you may say “birds of a feather flock together”, & therefore I sympathise with the author. I fear (& for this I am very sorry) he makes mincemeat with Agassiz’s embryonic fish. Touching progression it must have been very satisfactory to you. I am very glad to hear about the placental Stonesfield Mammals; Waterhouse, years & years ago, told me he doubted whether they were placentata, but in those days it w^d. have been more than his life was worth to have gone against the great Hunterian Professor.—⁸ Thanks, also, for Nun,⁹ which has interested me a good deal, though written in a most un-Robinson-Crusoe style. I am very glad to hear of the second edition of your Journal, but what a rascally little sum of money you have got for it. Anyhow it was more than I did for my first Edition, which was,^£40, paid for copies to give away. Murray gave me ^£150 for his Edition.¹⁰ By the way I thank M^rs. Hooker much for sending me Humboldts letter, (so splendidly copied out):¹¹ it really must be very satisfactory to you to see how well he has read your Book.— It is too good a joke, the way the Lancet treats you.—¹² all Doctors, however, do not undervalue you, for I was speaking to one lately about your Journal, & I did not know how much he knew of you; so I said “we shall see him some day the first Botanist in Europe”, whereupon he snubbed me by saying, “Sir, he is decidedly now the first Botanist in Europe”.—

I hope that your Syon House party went off, brilliantly: I cannot make up my mind about Liverpool,¹³ it is such an exertion; but my wife today declares she thinks she shall be well enough to go & w^d. like it, which may possibly decide me to go.—

I have been reading lately “Westwoods modern Class: of insects,”¹⁴ & I want you, who take an active share in scientific business, to bear Westwood in mind whenever a turn comes for a zoological Royal medal. I think he must feel that years of hard work & of careful observation & of dissection have not been much recognised by the men of science of this country.—¹⁵

I have been frittering away my time for the last several weeks in a wearisome manner, partly idleness, & odds & ends, & sending ten-thousand Barnacles out of the house all over the world.— But I shall now in a day or two begin to look over my old notes on species.¹⁶ What a deal I shall have to discuss with you: I shall have to look sharp that I do not “progress” into one of the greatest bores in life to the few like you with lots of knowledge. I hope I have not already bored you with this long letter.

Affectionately yours | C. Darwin