ists
accepting my views more or less fully; but some are curiously cautious
in running the risk of any small odium in expressing their belief.

LETTER 123. TO H.W. BATES. Down, April 4th [1861].

I have been unwell, so have delayed thanking you for your admirable
letter. I hope you will not think me presumptuous in saying how much
I have been struck with your varied knowledge, and with the decisive
manner in which you bring it to bear on each point,--a rare and most
high quality, as far as my experience goes. I earnestly hope you will
find time to publish largely: before the Linnean Society you might bring
boldly out your views on species. Have you ever thought of publishing
your travels, and working in them the less abstruse parts of your
Natural History? I believe it would sell, and be a very valuable
contribution to Natural History. You must also have seen a good deal of
the natives. I know well it would be quite unreasonable to ask for any
further information from you; but I will just mention that I am now, and
shall be for a long time, writing on domestic varieties of all animals.
Any facts would be useful, especially any showing that savages take any
care in breeding their animals, or in rejecting the bad and preserving
the good; or any fancies which they may have that one coloured or marked
dog, etc., is better than another. I have already collected much on this
head, but am greedy for facts. You will at once see their bearing on
variation under domestication.

Hardly anything in your letter has pleased me more than about sexual
selection. In my larger MS. (and indeed in the "Origin" with respect
to the tuft of hairs on the breast of the cock-turkey) I have guarded
myself against going too far; but I did not at all know that male and
female butterflies haunted rather different sites. If I had to cut up
myself in a review I would have [worried?] and quizzed sexual selection;
therefore, though I am fully convinced that it is largely true, you may
imagine how pleased I am at what you say on your belief. This part
of your letter to me is a quintessence of richness. The fact about
butterflies attracted by coloured sepals is another good fact, worth its
weight in gold. It would have delighted the heart of old Christian C.
Sprengel--now many years in his grave.

I am glad to hear that you have specially attended to "mimetic"
analogies--a most curious subject; I hope you publish on it. I have
for a long time wished