Dear Sir

Six weeks ago seeing by all German papers that Paris is “à feu et à sang” and having the Zwischensemester before me I got here with my wife and stayed the whole time studying the eocene and miocene vertebrate fauna of France in the collections of the Jardin des Plantes and Ecole des Mines.¹ The confusion in this part of Palaeontology is really lamentable; genera and subgenera spring every day, founded on the most slight differences, and I have seen many of the Creators of genera, not excepting M^r Gervais himself,² who could on no account show reason why they did rise such and such forms into a genus. It is really high time that some good comparative anatomist with a critical and destructive turn of mind should go to work and bring some light into this confusion. Yesterday I have seen in the laboratoire of M^r Gervais a fact that shall certainly interest You; his son, a young medical man,³ succeeded in fertilizing artificially the eggs of Axolotls (Amblystoma) by the sperm of common Triton; his first experiments were done the last year and he got some bastards Axolotlo-Triton which unhapilly did not live more than six weeks; the young are alike distinct from both parents externally, but till now no minute investigation was undertaken to see the differences in the dental system and so on. This spring he succeded a second time in pairing male Tritons with female Axolotl ant the larvae are swimming merilly, there is a hope that they will live, as the first experiment has given some hints as to the best manner of their food and exposition to light. Such distinct animals giving (fertile) offspings, that should be a really remarkable fact.—⁴

Seeing that Paris is now in hands of “brigands”, assasins, socialists” and so on, one is astonished at the quiet mode of life it is still possible to have here; unhappily M^r Thier persist in saving us from the fictitious brigands and introducing “order”, so the cannon is booming without interruption day and night, but we are so acustomed to the sound that it seems quite natural.⁵ Having taken a walk in the Champs Elysèes I have seen two shells at ten yards, happily they did not burst, but some days ago while walking with my wife and sister a shell exploded some fifty yards from us without doing us any harm.⁶ I dont think the Versaillais will ever get into Paris, even if an assault should succeed under cover of the Mont Valerien and the large batteries of St. Cloud, the troops could not advance in the streets covered now by solid earth fortifications and armed with mitrailleuises; it seems however that under the pression of the newly elected municipalities Versailles shall make peace.⁷

Have You seen the brief description in the new Paleontologie generale of Gervais, of the Typotericum; there is nearly a complete skeleton in the museum of this remarkable animal found in Your pampean mud of South America⁸

Please to remember me to M^rs. Darwin and the ladies⁹ | Yours very truly | W. Kowalevksy

P.S. I hope to return to Berlin in some days, so my adress in th same, Anatomical Museum.—