omnium gatherum affair, with observations on the fossil and recent species.
One section is devoted to the persistence in time of the specific
characters of the mammoth. I trace him from before the Glacial period,
through it and after it, unchangeable and unchanged as far as the organs of
digestion (teeth) and locomotion are concerned. Now, the Glacial period
was no joke: it would have made ducks and drakes of your dear pigeons and
doves.

With all my shortcomings, I have such a sincere and affectionate regard for
you and such admiration of your work, that I should be pained to find that
I had expressed my honest convictions in a way that would be open to any
objection by you. The reasoning may be very stupid, but I believe that the
observation is sound. Will you, therefore, look over the few pages which I
have sent, and tell me whether you find any flaw, or whether you think I
should change the form of expression? You have been so unhandsomely and
uncandidly dealt with by a friend of yours and mine that I should be sorry
to find myself in the position of an opponent to you, and more particularly
with the chance of making a fool of myself.

I met your brother yesterday, who tells me you are coming to town. I hope
you will give me a hail. I long for a jaw with you, and have much to speak
to you about.

You will have seen the eclaircissement about the Eocene monkeys of England.
By a touch of the conjuring wand they have been metamorphosed--a la Darwin
--into Hyracotherian pigs. (142/2. "On the Hyracotherian Character of the
Lower Molars of the supposed Macacus from the Eocene Sand of Kyson,
Suffolk." "Ann. Mag. Nat. Hist." Volume X., 1862, page 240. In this note
Owen stated that the teeth which he had named Macacus ("Ann. Mag." 1840,
page 191) most probably belonged to Hyracotherium cuniculus. See "A