To J. D. Hooker   13 July [1856]¹

My dear Hooker

Your letter, as usual, has been most valuable to me. I am delighted at what you say about Huxley’s answer & I agree most entirely: it is excellent & most clear; I thought from the first that he was right, but was not able to put it clearly to myself.— By the way do you remember Huxley’s entry of “Darwin, an absolute & eternal hermaphrodite”:² he can find no certain case, nor have I ever been able. Apropos to my asking him whether the ciliograde acalephes could not take in spermatozoa by the mouth,³ which takes in so much water, he gives me a sentence like our case of pollen, in which nature seems to us so clumsy & wasteful. He says “The indecency of the process is to a certain extent in favour of its probability, nature becoming very low in all senses amongst these creatures”. What a book a Devil’s chaplain might write on the clumsy, wasteful, blundering low & horridly cruel works of nature! With respect to crossing, from one sentence in your letter I think you misunderstand me:⁴ I am very far from believing in hybrids; only in crossing of same species or of close varieties. These two or 3 last days, I have been observing wheat & have convinced myself that L. Deslongchamps is in error about impregnation taking place in closed flower;⁵ ie of course I can judge only from external appearances. By the way R. Brown⁶ once told me that the use of brush on stigma of grasses was unknown: do you know its use?

You once asked me whether I had your Lemann’s list of Madeira plants,⁷ I see in Forbes Memoir in note,⁸ that you lent it him, as he says; probably he never returned it—

I enclose old note of yours about Lyallia; it may refresh your memory: as for this plant & the Pringlea, I sh^d. think the Vestiges’ theory that they were converted algæ, was as good as any!⁹ Confound & exterminate them.—

Very many thanks for the answers about Chile & New Zealand plants.

You say most truly about multiple creations & my notions; if any one case could be proved, I sh^d. be smashed: but as I am writing my Book, I try to take as much pains as possible to give the strongest cases opposed to me, & offer such conjectures as occur to me: I have been working your Books as richest (& vilest) mine against me: & what hard work I have had to get up your New Zealand Flora! As I have to quote you so often, I sh^d. like to refer to Mullers case of Australian Alps:—where is it published? Is it a Book? a correct reference would be enough for me, though it is wrong ever to quote without looking oneself.— I sh^d. like to see very much Forbes sheets, which you refer to; but I must confess (I hardly know why) I have got rather to mistrust poor dear Forbes.—

There is wonderful ill logic in his famous & admirable memoir on distribution,¹⁰ as it appears to me, now that I have got it up so as to give the Heads in a page.— Depend on it, my saying is a true one, viz that a compiler is a great man, & an original man a common-place man. Any fool can generalise & speculate; but oh my Heavens to get up at second hand a New Zealand Flora, that is work.—

I am so glad to hear about Henslow & wheat: I do hope there was no wheat-field near: he ought to state distance & whether flowering coincides with that of wheat.—

And now I am going to beg almost as great a favour, as a man can beg of another: and I ask some 5 or 6 weeks before I want favour done, that it may appear less horrid: it is to read, but well copied out, my pages (about 40!!) on alpine floras & faunas arctic & antarctic floras & faunas & the supposed cold mundane period.—¹¹ It w^d be really an enormous advantage to me; as I am sure otherwise to make Botanical blunders. I would specify the few points on which I most want your advice. But it is quite likely that you may object on ground that you might be publishing before me (I hope to publish in a year at furthest) so that it would hamper & bother you; & secondly you may object to loss of time; for I daresay it would take hour & half to read.— It certainly would be immense advantage to me; but of course you must not think of doing it, if it would interfere with your own work.—

My dear Hooker | Ever yours | C. Darwin

I do not consider this request in futuro, as breaking my promise to give no more trouble for some time.

From Lyell’s letters he is coming round at a Railway pace on the mutability of species, & authorises me to put some sentences on this head in my preface.¹²

I shall meet Lyell on Wednesday at L^d. Stanhopes & will ask him to forward my letter to you;¹³ though as my arguments have not struck him; they cannot have force, & my head must be crotchety on subject; but the crotchets keep firmly there.— I have given your opinion on continuous land, I see, too strongly.