To J. D. Hooker   10 [March 1858]

[Down]

10th

My dear Hooker

On my honour I am ashamed of myself, & I assure you that I will not for some considerable time make any troublesome request, if you will relend me Ledebour Flora Russica.—1 I will keep it only for short time, & will return it very soon, as I did the 3 last vols. of Decandolle.—

I find now that I am putting my notes together that I accidentally tabulated ranges of species on different principle to other cases, & I am quite confounded & put to a dead lock, until I have them done conformably.2 Can you spare them again?

Do pray forgive me & Believe me | Yours most humbly | C. Darwin

I presume you never found out any Flora of Holland;?3

I am in better heart about my tables of vars. in large & small genera, since trying them in various ways to test your serious objection.—

I have just got your note. Hearty thanks. I am so very glad you are got interested on subject, of highest importance for my doctrines.— I cannot collect never my wits at once to deliberate on your remarks, but I will & then write.—

I suppose you have correctly tabulated Weddell4 you say you have done it only roughly: it is very hostile indeed to me I shd. very much like to do it on principle on which I have invariably acted, whether right or wrong. viz to avoid getting only a few genera on the large side; as you have done it, you have only got 10 genera on one side. [SYMBOL] I fear that you cannot spare it for a week.5

1
Ledebour 1842–53. CD had borrowed this work from Hooker in 1857 (Correspondence vol. 6, letters to J. D. Hooker, 30 September [1857] and 14 [November 1857]).
2
CD believed he had evidence to show that common and widespread species tended to belong to the larger genera (Natural selection, pp. 140–5). His notes and calculations on the geographical range of varieties and species extracted from Ledebour 1842–53 are in DAR 15.2: 82–105.
3
CD had earlier borrowed Miquel 1837 from Hooker but had found it inadequate for his purposes (Correspondence vol. 6, letter to J. D. Hooker, [23 October 1857]). See Natural selection, p. 143.
4
Hooker’s note has not been found; it evidently contained the results of some calculations he made, using CD’s techniques, on data drawn from Weddell 1856.

Manuscript Alterations and Comments

1.3 only] interl
2.1 accidentally] interl
4.1 any] before del ‘oth’
7.1 Weddell] interl
7.4 the large] after del ‘either’

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-2237,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-2237