baseless the whole thing is he adduced one fact as opposed, which is just what I should have thought favorable, viz the absence of Ophrys an aboundant S. Europe genus of many common species, but unknown in Madeira.² Now this has such minute seeds & such millions of them, & if the Madeira plants were transported aerially, one cannot conceive the absence of Ophrys. To me such cases as Ophrys are extremely important, as indicating a sequence in the creation of Groups,—for if Ophrys was as abundant & wide spread when Atlantis existed as now, it must have been there too then & we take for granted would be now, on the other hand—assuming the wind as the agent if Ophrys had existed in Europe as long as the other species that are common to Europe & Madeira its seeds must have got wafted across..

The fact of Apterous Coleoptera³ strikes me too as extremely curious & reminds me of an old remark I made that not only the few beetles of Kerguelens land were apterous but the only Lepidopterous insect on the Island was so too!

Your final cause for so many of the insects being apterous is very pretty &, no doubt good, but how does it square with the fact that so large a proportion of Desert (Sahara, Pampas, Australian) Coleoptera are apterous—that in fact where wings would be most wanted, & where it is to be assumed that great areas must be traversed for either animal or vegetable food, that there the insects have smallest power of locomotion—that where the deer, birds & Carnivora have the longest legs the insects have the shortest. Had the Madeira coleoptera unusually strong powers of flight would we not have said that this was to enable them to make for shore again after being blown out to sea.⁴

Kippist⁵ demurred about the books in the Linn. Soc library, & I suggested that you should take out in your own, mine, & my Father’s names—which will answer the purpose equally well.⁶ I never took a book out in my life, & my Father never even sent for one but once & could not get it! so you need not fear clashing with us! & take as many as Kippist will give you.

I will take Flora Cestrica & A Gray to the Atheneæum.⁷

I entirely agree in your verdict on Johnstones Phys Atlas,⁸ but it is high treason to say so. The great difficulty is to know in what intelligeable terms to designate the Bot. provinces; a modification of the circles crossing &c is certainly the only way, & to start with a few types: but untill we get some definite ideas of the contents of some large tracts we cannot do much.— I shall however collect materials towards the object for the next few years—

I have just (thanks to Bentham’s⁹ kind aid) concluded a good & complete catalogue of the Australian Leguminae,¹⁰ & shall probably work it up. There is but one Europeæn species, the common Lotus corniculatus; it abounds in marshes of New South Wales & Tasmania, but is not found wild elsewhere out of Europe that I know of in the Southern hemisphere— these are the extraordinary facts that will not be accounted for.

Out of fully 800 species I do not think that there are a dozen common to South East & South West Australia; whole well marked genera containing many sections & species are absolutely confined to S.W. Australia.— There is nothing like this in any other part of the world: it is utterly astounding, & though I thought myself rather well up in the Australian Flora I was not prepared for this to such an extent. Also taken as a whole the Flora of Tasmania does not present so many species hardly distinct from S.E. Australian ones as it ought; The Tasmanian species are either very distinct, or quite the same, & what is most curious, this applies as well to the alpine plants, though the climate of the Australian Alps must be a good deal different from that of the Tasmanian ones.

There is another point to be worked in your apterous insect case— viz is the proportion apterous European species in Madeira great or small? if over-sea migration were the means of peopling Madeira with insects, then the European species should be winged ones—¹¹ There is still another point— Do you suppose that the majority are apterous because the winged ones have been blown out to sea & perished miserably?— Really these questions are like Cerberus & his heads, the more arguments one disposes of the more rise up in grim array

Ever yrs | Jos D Hooker.