era and allies with this object in view. The
subject has often presented itself to me as a grand one for analytic
botany. No doubt its establishment would account for the community of
the peculiar genera on the several groups and islets, but whilst so
many species are common we must allow for a good deal of migration of
peculiar genera too.

By Jove! I will write out next mail to the Governor of St. Helena for
boxes of earth, and you shall have them to grow. Thanks for telling me
of having suggested to me the working out of proportions of plants with
irregular flowers in islands. I thought it was a deuced deal too good
an idea to have arisen spontaneously in my block, though I did not
recollect your having done so. No doubt your suggestion was crystallised
in some corner of my sensorium. I should like to work out the point.

Have you Kerguelen Land amongst your volcanic islands? I have a curious
book of a sealer who was wrecked on the island, and who mentions a
volcanic mountain and hot springs at the S.W. end; it is called the
"Wreck of the Favourite." (378/1. "Narrative of the Wreck of the
'Favourite' on the Island of Desolation; detailing the Adventures,
Sufferings and Privations of John Munn; an Historical Account of the
Island and its Whale and Sea Fisheries." Edited by W.B. Clarke: London,
1850.)

LETTER 379. TO J.D. HOOKER. Down, March 17th, 1867.

It is a long time since I have written, but I cannot boast that I have
refrained from charity towards you, but from having lots of work...You
ask what I have been doing. Nothing but blackening proofs with
corrections. I do not believe any man in England naturally writes so
vile a style as I do...

In your paper on "Insular Floras" (page 9) there is what I must think an
error, which I before pointed out to you: viz., you say that the plants
which are wholly distinct from those of nearest continent are often
very common instead of very rare. (379/1. "Insular Floras," pamphlet
reprinted from the "Gardeners' Chronicle," page 9: "As a general
rule the species of the mother continent are proportionally the most
abundant, and cover the greatest surface of the islands. The peculiar
species are rarer, the peculiar genera of continental affinity are rarer
still; whilst the plants having no affinity with those of the mother
continent are often very common." In a letter of March 20th, 1867,
Sir Joseph explains that in the case of the Atlantic islands it is the
"peculiar ge