Ɛpsilon

WCP2321

Letter (WCP2321.2211)

[1]1

Desborough

Market Harborough

24th May 1875

Dear Sir,

I am not a naturalist, and it may therefore be presumptious in me to offer a suggestion to one like you. Pray excuse me & put my letter in the fire if the suggestion I am about to make seems to you to have no value.

If it be that as many individuals of a given species die annually as are born, ought it not to be a law that the rate of variation of any two species should bear some proportion to the average number of the species born young? Suppose a species of bird A, be such that a pair produces 5 young ones annually, and another species B produces 15 young per pair x, the species B must offer to a breeder 3 times as many to select from as A will, and 3 times as many for natural selection to act upon. Ought not then B to be improved more & more rapidly than A? Then should not B, in a given period result in diverging into more new species than A?

[in margin] x i.e. per pair existing in breeding season.

Probably this may have been considered by naturalists, but if so I have not ascertained [2] that it has. Certainly if such a law could be proved it would strengthen the Theory of Natural Selection.

If I am right in supposing such a law should exist, would it not appropriately find a place in your section in the "Different effects of Natural Selection in Animals and in Man"?2

I see that you give great weight, in this section, to the self-dependance of animals. Excuse me if I ask what difference the cause of death can make, provided it be a cause which selects the weakest, on the assumption that the number annually surviving be the same? If this self-dependance of one species succeed that of another one can suppose that in the latter many of the strong may give their lives in defence of the weak, and that thus the less sympathetic species may retrograde and stand still. This, however, I do not apprehend to be your meaning.

Again apologising for venturing to make suggestions to you, I am

Dear Sir | Yours faithfully | John Hickman3 [signature]

Alfred Russel Wallace Esq

1
In ARW’s handwriting, "about Nat. Selection a difficulty. Jas Hickman".
2
Wallace incorporated Hickman's observations in the book he published the following year. Wallace, A. R. (1876). The Geographical Distribution of Animals; With A Study of the Relations of Living and Extinct Faunas as Elucidating the Past Changes of the Earth's Surface. 2 volumes. Macmillan & Co., London. Vol 1: pp. i-xxiv, 1-503. [p.158]
3
Hickman, John (-). British manager of the Desborough Iron Ore Company.

Editorial information

Status: Draft transcription [Letter (WCP2321.2211)]

For more information about the transcriptions and metadata, see https://wallaceletters.myspecies.info/content/epsilon

Revision history

Transcribed by Ghosh, Susan [2015-04-08] Transcription checked by Benny, Ruth [2015-04-08] Transcription checked by Sherwood, Danni [2020-08-10] Transcription checked by Chua, Christine [2026-04-18]

Please cite as “WCP2321,” in Beccaloni, G. W. (ed.), Ɛpsilon: The Alfred Russel Wallace Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/wallace/letters/WCP2321