I do nothing here except occasionally look at a few flowers, and there are
very few here, for the country is wonderfully barren.

See what it is to be well trained. Horace said to me yesterday, "If every
one would kill adders they would come to sting less." I answered: "Of
course they would, for there would be fewer." He replied indignantly: "I
did not mean that; but the timid adders which run away would be saved, and
in time would never sting at all." Natural selection of cowards!


LETTER 142. H. FALCONER TO CHARLES DARWIN.

(142/1. This refers to the MS. of Falconer's paper "On the American Fossil
Elephant of the Regions bordering the Gulf of Mexico (E. Columbi, Falc.),"
published in the "Natural History Review," January, 1863, page 43. The
section dealing with the bearing of his facts on Darwin's views is at page
77. He insists strongly (page 78) on the "persistence and uniformity of
the characters of the molar teeth in the earliest known mammoth, and his
most modern successor." Nevertheless, he adds that the "inferences I draw
from these facts are not opposed to one of the leading propositions of
Darwin's theory." These admissions were the more satisfactory since, as
Falconer points out (page 77), "I have been included by him in the category
of those who have vehemently maintained the persistence of specific
characters.")

21, Park Crescent, Portland Place, N.W., September 24th [1862].

Do not be frightened at the enclosure. I wish to set myself right by you
before I go to press. I am bringing out a heavy memoir on elephants--an