Ɛpsilon

From J. D. Hooker   [6 August 1866]1

Kew

Monday.

Dear Darwin

Again thanks for your letter.2

You need not fear my not doing justice to your objections to the Continental Hypothesis.!3

Referring to p. 344 again, it never occurred to me that you alluded to extinction of Marine life— an isthmus is a piece of land, & you go on in the same sentence about “an island”, which quite threw me out: for the destruction of isthmi makes Islands!4

Bentham is away, but I will put your query on his desk.5

I surely did not say Azores nearer to Britain & N.F.L “than to Madeira”, but “than Madeira is to said places”6

With regard to Madeira Coleoptera I rely very little on local distrib. of Insects—they are so local themselves.7 A butterfly is a great rarity in Kew, even a white, though we are surrounded by Market Garden— all insects are most rare with us, even the kinds that abound on opposite side of Thames.8

So with shells, we have literally 0—not a Helix even, though they abound in the lanes 200 yards off the Gardens.

of the 89 Dezertas Insects—only 11 are peculiar.

of the 162 Porto Santan, 113 are Madeira, & 51 Dezertan.9

Never mind bothering Murray about the new Edn of the Origin for me.10 You will tell me anything bearing on my subject.

AL

1
The date is established by the relationship between this letter and the letter to J. D. Hooker, 3 and 4 August [1866]. In 1866, the first Monday after 4 August was 6 August.
3
CD commented on the colonisation of oceanic islands by plants, listing various points in favour of occasional transport (or trans-oceanic migration) and against continental extension, in his letter to Hooker of 3 and 4 August [1866].
5
Hooker refers to George Bentham. The enclosure has not been found.
6
Hooker had written ambiguously about the distance to Britain and Newfoundland from the Azores and Madeira in his letter to CD of 31 July 1866; see letter to J. D. Hooker, 3 and 4 August [1866].
7
CD had asked Hooker why he had discussed differences between the land shells of Porto Santo and Madeira, but not considered differences between the insect populations of the islands (see letter to J. D. Hooker, 3 and 4 August [1866] and n. 9).
8
In 1868, the commercial residents of the village of Kew included three market gardeners, two florists and one gardener; the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, are in a western suburb of London on the south bank of the river Thames (Post Office London suburban directory 1868).
9
Hooker’s information is taken from Wollaston 1857, pp. xiv–xv. The Desertas are a group of islands south-east of Madeira; Porto Santo is a small island north-east of Madeira. Both Porto Santo and the Desertas belong to the Madeiran group of islands (EB).
10
Hooker refers to the fourth edition of Origin. See letter to J. D. Hooker, 3 and 4 August [1866] and nn. 17 and 18.

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-5182,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-5182