remarks on the passage of the northern forms southward, and of
the southern forms of no kinds passing northward, seem to me grand.
Admirable, also, are your remarks on the struggle of vegetation: I find
that I have rather misunderstood you, for I feared I differed from you,
which I see is hardly the case at all. I cannot help suspecting that you
put rather too much weight to climate in the case of Australia. La
Plata seems to present such analogous facts, though I suppose the
naturalisation of European plants has there taken place on a still
larger scale than in Australia...

You will get four copies of my book--one for self, and three for the
foreign botanists--in about ten days, or sooner; i.e., as soon as the
sheets can be bound in cloth. I hope this will not be too late for your
parcels.

When you read my volume, use your pencil and score, so that some time I
may have a talk with you on any criticisms.

LETTER 346. TO HUGH FALCONER. Down, December 17th, [1859].

Whilst I think of it, let me tell you that years ago I remember seeing
in the Museum of the Geological Society a tooth of hippopotamus from
Madagascar: this, on geographical and all other grounds, ought to be
looked to. Pray make a note of this fact. (346/1. At a meeting of the
Geological Society, May 1st, 1833, a letter was read from Mr. Telfair
to Sir Alex. Johnstone, accompanying a specimen of recent conglomerate
rock, from the island of Madagascar, containing fragments of a tusk, and
part of a molar tooth of a hippopotamus ("Proc. Geol. Soc." 1833, page
479). There is a reference to these remains of hippopotamus in a paper
by Mr. R.B. Newton in the "Geol. Mag." Volume X., 1893; and in Dr.
Forsyth Major's memoir on Megaladapis Madagascariensis ("Phil. Trans. R.
Soc." Volume 185, page 30, 1894).

Since this letter was written, several bones belonging to two or
possibly three species of hippopotamus have been found in Madagascar.
See Forsyth Major, "On the General Results of a Zoological Expedition to
Madagascar in 1894-96" ("Proc. Zool. Soc." 1896, page 971.))

We have returned a week ago from Ilkley, and it has done me some decided
good. In London I saw Lyell (the poor man who has "rushed into the
bosom of two heresies"--by the way, I saw his celts, and how intensely
interesting), and he told me that you were very antagonistic to my views
on species. I well knew this would be the case. I must freely confess,
the difficulties and objections are te