We had a good laugh over some parts of your letter.² I have not, as yet, had time to read any of Häckel’s book.³

I am delighted to hear about the discovery, and hope, if it turns out well, to have my stimulated curiosity satisfied with regard to it. If it is as interesting as the observations about the seeds, people will think Frank a very lucky fellow to hook so many good fish in such a short time.⁴

Not having heard his arguments about the article-writing, I am still strongly of your opinion, and, being besides ill able to afford any time just now, I shall not bother with it.⁵ When I think that in this one county (Ross, and still more in Cromarty)⁶ there are more rabbits expressly bred every year for trapping than could be vivisected in all the physiological laboratories in Europe during the next thousand years, it seems hopeless to reason with people who, knowing such facts, expend all their energies in straining at a wonderfully small gnat, while swallowing, as an article of daily food, such an enormously large camel.⁷