oduction of Varieties, Races,
and Species, contain the results of the investigations of two
indefatigable naturalists, Mr. Charles Darwin and Mr. Alfred Wallace.

These gentlemen having, independently and unknown to one another,
conceived the same very ingenious theory to account for the appearance
and perpetuation of varieties and of specific forms on our planet, may
both fairly claim the merit of being original thinkers in this important
line of inquiry; but neither of them having published his views, though
Mr. Darwin has for many years past been repeatedly urged by us to do so,
and both authors having now unreservedly placed their papers in our
hands, we think it would best promote the interests of science that a
selection from them should be laid before the Linnean Society.

Taken in the order of their dates, they consist of:--

1. Extracts from a MS. work on Species[A], by Mr. Darwin, which was
sketched in 1839, and copied in 1844, when the copy was read by Dr.
Hooker, and its contents afterwards communicated to Sir Charles Lyell.
The first Part is devoted to "The Variation of Organic Beings under
Domestication and in their Natural State;" and the second chapter of
that Part, from which we propose to read to the Society the extracts
referred to, is headed, "On the Variation of Organic Beings in a state
of Nature; on the Natural Means of Selection; on the Comparison of
Domestic Races and true Species."

2. An abstract of a private letter addressed to Professor Asa Gray, of
Boston, U.S., in October 1857, by Mr. Darwin, in which he repeats his
views, and which shows that these remained unaltered from 1839 to 1857.

3. An Essay by Mr. Wallace, entitled "On the Tendency of Varieties to
depart indefinitely from the Original Type." This was written at Ternate
in February 1858, for the perusal of his friend and correspondent Mr.
Darwin, and sent to him with the expressed wish that it should be
forwarded to Sir Charles Lyell, if Mr. Darwin thought it sufficiently
novel and interesting. So highly did Mr. Darwin appreciate the value of
the views therein set forth, that he proposed, in a letter to Sir
Charles Lyell, to obtain Mr. Wallace's consent to allow the Essay to be
published as soon as possible. Of this step we highly approved, provided
Mr. Darwin did not withhold from the public, as he was strongly inclined
to do (in favour of Mr. Wallace), the memoir which he had himself
written on the same subject, and which, as