Letter and/or further information available at https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-2932A.xml.
Also published in The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, vol. 8.
Please cite as “DCP-LETT-2932A,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 May 2024, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-2932A
Expects lack of diversification of immigrant mammals on long isolated islands will come to show slowness of selective change.
Asks whether CD has speculated on turtles becoming terrestrial on remote islands.
Perhaps non-diversification on islands is explained by tiny proportion of variable species. Those that vary on continent may not do so on island.
A. Gray is afraid of objections to Origin from imperfection of fossil record.
His argument with Falconer over the hypothesis of limited modifiability.
Are the bird-like characters of the Apteryx parts not yet suppressed or nascent organs?
Extinctions of ammonites, belemnites, and hippurites are striking. Perhaps ammonites made way for higher cuttle-fish.
Believes hybrid origin of domestic dog would weaken objections to treating white man and negro as species. Are there not many reputed species among the Mammalia more closely related than these races?
Objects not to the term "selection" but to what CD assigns to it. It should not be confused with the "Creative power" behind variation and the "capacity of ascending in the scale of being".
Darwin Correspondence Project[View Ɛpsilon collection]
Also published in The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, vol. 8.