to jury. I cannot
do this without putting all difficulties most clearly. How do you know
how you would fare with me if you were a continentalist! Then too we
must recollect that I have to meet a host who are all on the continental
side--in fact, pretty nearly all the thinkers, Forbes, Hartung, Heer,
Unger, Wollaston, Lowe (Wallace, I suppose), and now Andrew Murray. I do
not regard all these, and snap my fingers at all but you; in my inmost
soul I conscientiously say I incline to your theory, but I cannot accept
it as an established truth or unexceptionable hypothesis.

The "Wire bird" being a Grallator is a curious fact favourable to
you...How I do yearn to go out again to St. Helena.

Of course I accept the ornithological evidence as tremendously strong,
though why they should get blown westerly, and not change specifically,
as insects, shells, and plants have done, is a mystery.

LETTER 370. TO J.D. HOOKER. Down, August 8th [1866].

It would be a very great pleasure to me if I could think that my letters
were of the least use to you. I must have expressed myself badly for you
to suppose that I look at islands being stocked by occasional transport
as a well-established hypothesis. We both give up creation, and
therefore have to account for the inhabitants of islands either by
continental extensions or by occasional transport. Now, all that
I maintain is that of these two alternatives, one of which must be
admitted, notwithstanding very many difficulties, occasional transport
is by far the most probable. I go thus far further--that I maintain,
knowing what we do, that it would be inexplicable if unstocked islands
were not stocked to a certain extent at least by these occasional means.
European birds are occasionally driven to America, but far more rarely
than in the reverse direction: they arrive via Greenland (Baird); yet a
European lark has been caught in Bermuda.

By the way, you might like to hear that European birds regularly migrate
via the northern islands to Greenland.

About the erratics in the Azores see "Origin," page 393. (370/1.
"Origin," Edition VI., page 328. The importance of erratic blocks on the
Azores is in showing the probability of ice-borne seeds having stocked
the islands, and thus accounting for the number of European species
and their unexpectedly northern character. Darwin's delight in the
verification of his theory is described in a letter to Sir Joseph of
April 26th, 1858, in the "L