hey are apt to be social (i.e. many individuals in
comparison to specific forms), and I should be tempted to look at this
as a case of a very small area, and consequently of very few individuals
in comparison with those on the land or in pure fresh-water; and hence
less development (odious word!) than on land or fresh-water. But here
comes in your two-edged sword! I should like much to see any paper on
plants of brackish water or on the edge of the sea; but I suppose such
has never been published.

Thanks about Nelumbium, for I think this was the very plant which from
the size of seed astonished me, and which A. De Candolle adduced as
a marvellous case of almost impossible transport. I now find to my
surprise that herons do feed sometimes on [illegible] fruit; and grebes
on seeds of Compositae.

Many thanks for offer of help about a grant for the Abstract; but I
should hope it would sell enough to pay expenses.

I am reading your letter and scribbling as I go on.

Your oak and chestnut case seems very curious; is it not the more so as
beeches have gone to, or come from the south? But I vehemently protest
against you or any one making such cases especial marvels, without you
are prepared to say why each species in any flora is twice or thrice,
etc., rarer than each other species which grows in the same soil. The
more I think, the more evident is it to me how utterly ignorant we are
of the thousand contingencies on which range, frequency, and extinction
of each species depend.

I have sometimes thought, from Edentata (70/5. No doubt a slip of the
pen for Monotremata.) and Marsupialia, that Australia retains a remnant
of the former and ancient state of the fauna of the world, and I suppose
that you are coming to some such conclusion for plants; but is not the
relation between the Cape and Australia too special for such views? I
infer from your writings that the relation is too special between Fuegia
and Australia to allow us to look at the resemblances in certain plants
as the relics of mundane resemblances. On the other hand, [have] not
the Sandwich Islands in the Northern Hemisphere some odd relations
to Australia? When we are dead and gone what a noble subject will be
Geographical Distribution!

You may say what you like, but you will never convince me that I do not
owe you ten times as much as you can owe me. Farewell, my dear Hooker. I
am sorry to hear that you are both unwell with influenza. Do not bother
your