WCP3902

[1]

Broadstone, Wimborne

Feb^y. 14th. 1905

Sir Joseph Hooker¹

My dear Sir Joseph

Thanks for permission to quote your letter, & ^for information. I have got the N. Z. Trans with Cockayne’s² paper which I read with great interest.

He is too ready to accept any statement as ^to the necessity of land connection, — e.g. for spiders & Earthworms. Surely the possibilities of transmission of the light fluffy cocoons of spiders' eggs, or of very young spiders' are almost unlimited, — both by gales & by floating timber — and as for [2] earthworms, their ova are enclosed in a cocoon which becomes very hard & tough on exposure to the air, and in that state might be floated probably for long distances, or carried in cracks of the roots of torn up trees, or in earth or floating glaciers.

I wish he would analyze the character of the fruits & seeds of all the Auckland Is. plants in relation to the various known modes of dispersal. Till that is done it seems to me that it is impossible ^to come to any definite conclusion as to the necessity of land connections. I do not see myself anything so wonderful in the association of the same plants [3] in the Rata forests of Auckland and New Zealand. They would require somewhat similar conditions in both islands, & would exist best there, even if they reached Auckland Is. at very different times.

I will write and ask Dyer³ about his paper which I do not remember seeing.

Believe me | yours very truly | Alfred R. Wallace [signature]