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Holly House, Barking, E. July 6, 1870.

Dear Darwin,—­Many thanks for the drawing.  I must say, however, the resemblance to a snake is not very striking, unless to a cobra not found in America.  It is also evident that it is not Mr. Bates’s caterpillar, as that threw the head backwards so as to show the feet above, forming imitations of keeled scales.

Claparede has sent me his critique on my book.  You will probably have it too.  His arguments in reply to my heresy seem to me of the weakest.  I hear you have gone to press, and I look forward with fear and trembling to being crushed under a mountain of facts!

I hear you were in town the other day.  When you are again, I should be glad to come at any convenient hour and give you a call.

Hoping your health is improving, and with kind remembrances to Mrs. Darwin and all your family, believe me yours very faithfully,

ALFRED R. WALLACE.

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In “My Life” (Vol.  II., p. 7) Wallace wrote:  “In the year 1870 Mr. A.W.  Bennett read a paper before Section D of the British Association at Liverpool entitled ’The Theory of Natural Selection from a Mathematical Point of View,’ and this paper was printed in full in Nature of November 10, 1870.  To this I replied on November 17, and my reply so pleased Mr. Darwin that he at once wrote to me as follows:” 

Down, Beckenham, Kent, S.E.  November 22, 1870.

My dear Wallace,—­I must ease myself by writing a few words to say how much I and all others in this house admire your article in Nature.  You are certainly an unparalleled master in lucidly stating a case and in arguing.  Nothing ever was better done than your argument about the term “origin of species,” and the consequences about much being gained, even if we know nothing about precise cause of each variation.  By chance I have given a few words in my first volume, now some time printed off, about mimetic butterflies, and have touched on two of your points, viz. on species already widely dissimilar not being made to resemble each other, and about the variations in Lepidoptera being often well pronounced.  How strange it is that Mr. Bennett or anyone else should bring in the action of the mind as a leading cause of variation, seeing the beautiful and complex adaptations and modifications of structure in plants, which I do not suppose they would say had minds.

I have finished the first volume, and am half-way through the first proof of the second volume, of my confounded book, which half kills me by fatigue, and which I much fear will quite kill me in your good estimation.

If you have leisure I should much like a little news of you and your doings and your family.—­Ever yours very sincerely,

CH.  DARWIN.

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Holly House, Barking, E. November 24, 1870.