inch with me now go a foot or yard with me.

This note obviously requires no answer.

LETTER 118. TO H.W. BATES. Down, November 22nd [1860].

I thank you sincerely for writing to me and for your very interesting
letter. Your name has for very long been familiar to me, and I have
heard of your zealous exertions in the cause of Natural History. But
I did not know that you had worked with high philosophical questions
before your mind. I have an old belief that a good observer really means
a good theorist (118/1. For an opposite opinion, see Letter 13.), and I
fully expect to find your observations most valuable. I am very sorry to
hear that your health is shattered; but I trust under a healthy climate
it may be restored. I can sympathise with you fully on this score, for
I have had bad health for many years, and fear I shall ever remain a
confirmed invalid. I am delighted to hear that you, with all your large
practical knowledge of Natural History, anticipated me in many respects
and concur with me. As you say, I have been thoroughly well attacked and
reviled (especially by entomologists--Westwood, Wollaston, and A. Murray
have all reviewed and sneered at me to their hearts' content), but I
care nothing about their attacks; several really good judges go a long
way with me, and I observe that all those who go some little way tend
to go somewhat further. What a fine philosophical mind your friend Mr.
Wallace has, and he has acted, in relation to me, like a true man with
a noble spirit. I see by your letter that you have grappled with
several of the most difficult problems, as it seems to me, in Natural
History--such as the distinctions between the different kinds of
varieties, representative species, etc. Perhaps I shall find some facts
in your paper on intermediate varieties in intermediate regions, on
which subject I have found remarkably little information. I cannot tell
you how glad I am to hear that you have attended to the curious point
of equatorial refrigeration. I quite agree that it must have been small;
yet the more I go into that question the more convinced I feel that
there was during the Glacial period some migration from north to south.
The sketch in the "Origin" gives a very meagre account of my fuller MS.
essay on this subject.

I shall be particularly obliged for a copy of your paper when published
(118/2. Probably a paper by Bates entitled "Contributions to an Insect
Fauna of the Amazon Valley" ("Tran