WCP2049

[1]¹

[Ans[were]d][?]²

Thames Ditton

Jan[uar]y 24 1881

Dear Mr. Wallace

May I be allowed to express the satisfaction felt by myself, as doubtless by many others also, on learning that your services to science have at length received the complimentary recognition of a 'Queen's Pension'.

I am impelled to write just now, after completing perhaps the slowest reading of 'Island Life', which a vol[ume]. so attractive by treatment as well as subject is ever likely to find. The book has been daily under eye for some six weeks, through a time of much suffering, & of when continued attention to any book could be given only to very few [2] pages without frequent intervals of rest. An explanation of this state is, that I made an awkward fall early in December, causing slight concussion of brain & very severe sprains of left foot. Although the brain is gradually recovering, the foot remains in very bad condition; my locomotion limited to a daily slide from bed to sofa, without power of setting the foot on the floor. In this state I must be ^{content to} continue many weeks longer.

Slowly as I have been compelled to read it, lest its ideas should become confused and ill-understood, yet has 'Plant [Island] Life' proved a solace and enjoyment to me, as being so good ^{comprehensive} an argumentative summary of your views. With some of the most fundamental of those views I still find myself unable to concur, while unavoidably admitting them to be views now generally accepted, & nearly proved by yourself.

[3] In first place, I do not believe that species have been formed in, and then distributed from single centres. This will seem an awful heresy! And yet who can name to me any one animal or plant species known to have so originated & spread? Push it home, and the question can be answered only as a matter of faith, belief, opinion, or inference, — not of proof or knowledge.

However ably & convincingly you may have worked out your problem of 'Island Life', starting from your own foundation, and building on your own platform, it will still appear to me, as Reader, that possibly the foundation or platform is insecure.

I cannot express belief³ either in single centres or in plurality of centres; but my bias⁴ is rather towards the side of plurality.

While it may not really damage an argument, it is unlucky to cite selected species in illustration of it negatively; [4] that is, the fit of the illustration resting on absence, not on presence. Instances of this already occur in 'Island Life'; thus: —

Helianthemum Breweri has been found in Ireland. (Page 339).

Arum italicum, D[itt]o. in Cornwall (P. 336)

Calamintha sylvatica, D[itt]o. in S[outh]. Devon

Your specialties being chiefly on the Zoo side of Biology, perhaps you are not acquainted with the history of Epipogum in England; — an Orchid found once & most sparingly, immediately made extinct in its single station, and there having narrowly escaped recognition. Yet, to all seeming, it must have been a natural production where found, quite independently of human agency.

Yours very truly | Hewett C. Watson [signature]