Dear Sir

I hope that you will not think me presumptuous if I cannot resist the pleasure of telling you how much I admire your argument of the origin of species in the Transact. of the Victoria Institute.² The whole case strikes me as placed in the clearest & most spirited light; & I have no where seen so good an abstract. I quite agree with your Chairman that you have put the whole argument better than I have done.³ But I disagree with you, & it is the only point on which I do disagree, when you say that there is nothing in your article original.⁴ As I am writing I will ask you two questions, but if you cannot answer them easily, pray do not take any trouble on the subject; Firstly. Where have you seen an account of inherited baldness & deficient nails; & 2^ndly of the case of the plane which sent up an evergreen sucker or shoot.⁵

With sincere admiration of your powers of reasoning & illustration I beg leave to remain dear Sir | yours faithfully | Charles Darwin

P.S. I am charmed with M^r Ince’s argument that the ark was much too big to hold only half a dozen primordial types.⁶ M^r Ince w^d fully appreciate a simple & beautiful theory which Admiral Fitz Roy published some years ago on the extinction of the Ante-diluvial gigantic quadrupeds, namely that the door of the ark was made too small for them to get in⁷