WCP4218

[1]

Parkstone, Dorset.

Feb^y. 13th. 1891

Dear Mr. Cockerell¹

Thanks for the notes² on Coleoptera by Mr. Fowler.³ He has written to me, apparently in ignorance of what I had written in 1st Ed. of "Island Life",⁴ & under the impression that I am going to commit myself to the statement that all these beells [beetles] are peculiar to Britain! It is quite amusing how he and others think it necessary to warn me & to give me their decided opinion that none are peculiar! So I have written to him to thank [2] him and to explain. I shall be glad of the notes from the Catalogue of European Beetles, and will make out the list myself with what notes & remarks I think necessary, & then perhaps may ask Mr. Fowler to look at the proof. Janson’s⁵ remark is suggestive. Note about Loddigesia very useful.

I have had a long and very badly written letter from Galton⁵ criticising some of my suggested experiments — but I think mistakenly. I shall write to him again with some explanations & then I do not [3] see that I can do more.

I suggested some experiments something like yours, & many others. I do not quite agree with you that if acquired characters are inherited they would ^might only be so very rarely — If inherited (to be of any use in the theory of evolution, & that is the whole question) they ought to be inherited as frequently as other characters are inherited, that is, I presume, in about half the offspring. If only one in 100 exhibited the character how could you possibly say it was not a normal variation in that individual? Only by the very [4] frequent inheritance could you prove that there was any inheritance at all! I think you will see this. But it is too elaborate a question to discuss in letters.

Yours very faithfully | Alfred R. Wallace [signature]