urate facts to do anything with man.
Huxley, I believe, is at work upon it.

I have been reading Murray's volume on the Geographical Distribution of
Mammals. He has some good ideas here and there, but is quite unable to
understand Natural Selection, and makes a most absurd mess of his
criticism of your views on oceanic islands.

By the bye, what an interesting volume the whole of your materials on
that subject would, I am sure, make.--Yours very sincerely,

ALFRED R. WALLACE.

* * * * *

_Down, Bromley, Kent, S.E. March, 1867._

My dear Wallace,--I thank you much for your two notes. The case of Julia
Pastrana[58] is a splendid addition to my other cases of correlated teeth
and hair, and I will add it in correcting the proof of my present
volume. Pray let me hear in course of the summer if you get any evidence
about the gaudy caterpillars. I should much like to give (or quote if
published) this idea of yours, if in any way supported, as suggested by
you. It will, however, be a long time hence, for I can see that sexual
selection is growing into quite a large subject, which I shall introduce
into my essay on Man, supposing that I ever publish it.

I had intended giving a chapter on Man, inasmuch as many call him (not
_quite_ truly) an eminently _domesticated_ animal; but I found the
subject too large for a chapter. Nor shall I be capable of treating the
subject well, and my sole reason for taking it up is that I am pretty
well convinced that sexual selection has played an important part in the
formation of races, and sexual selection has always been a subject which
has interested me much.

I have been very glad to see your impression from memory on the
expressions of Malays. I fully agree with you that the subject is in no
way an important one: it is simply a "hobby-horse" with me about
twenty-seven years old; and after thinking that I would write an essay
on Man, it flashed on me that I could work in some "supplemental remarks
on expression." After the horrid, tedious, dull work of my present huge
and, I fear, unreadable book, I thought I would amuse myself with my
hobby-horse. The subject is, I think, more curious and more amenable to
scientific treatment than you seem willing to allow. I want, anyhow, to
upset Sir C. Bell's view, given in his most interesting work, "The
Anatomy of Expression," that certain muscles have been given to man
solely that he may reveal to other men his