and that your new book is really to
come out next winter.--Believe me yours very faithfully,

ALFRED R. WALLACE.

NOTE.--Last spring Mr. O'Callaghan was told by a country boy that he had
seen a blackbird with a topknot; on which Mr. O'C. very judiciously told
him to watch it and communicate further with him. After a time the boy
told him he had found a blackbird's nest, and had seen this crested bird
near it and believed he belonged to it. He continued watching the nest
till the young were hatched. After a time he told Mr. O'C. that two of
the young birds seemed as if they would have topknots. He was told to
get one of them as soon as it was fledged. However, he was too late, and
they left the nest, but luckily he found them near and knocked one down
with a stone, which Mr. O'C. had stuffed and exhibited. It has a fine
crest, something like that of a Polish fowl, but _larger_ in proportion
to the bird, and very regular and well formed. The male must have been
almost like the Umbrella bird in miniature, the crest is so large and
expanded.--A.R.W.

* * * * *

_Down, Bromley, Kent, S.E. September 22, 1865._

Dear Wallace,--I am much obliged for your extract; I never heard of such
a case, though such a variation is perhaps the most likely of any to
occur in a state of nature and be inherited, inasmuch as all
domesticated birds present races with a tuft or with reversed feathers
on their heads. I have sometimes thought that the progenitor of the
whole class must have been a crested animal.

Do you make any progress with your Journal of travels? I am the more
anxious that you should do so as I have lately read with much interest
some papers by you on the ouran-outang, etc., in the _Annals_, of which
I have lately been reading the latter volumes, I have always thought
that Journals of this nature do considerable good by advancing the taste
for natural history; I know in my own case that nothing ever stimulated
my zeal so much as reading Humboldt's Personal Narrative. I have not yet
received the last part of _Linnean Transactions_, but your paper[47] at
present will be rather beyond my strength, for though somewhat better I
can as yet do hardly anything but lie on the sofa and be read aloud to.
By the way, have you read Tylor and Lecky?[48] Both these books have
interested me much. I suppose you have read Lubbock?[49] In the last
chapter there is a note about you in which I most cordially c