ered with a beech forest between the
Caucasus and Japan!

I have not yet seen (for I have not sent to the station) Falconer's
works. When you say that you sigh to think how poor your reprinted
memoirs would appear, on my soul I should like to shake you till your
bones rattled for talking such nonsense. Do you sigh over the "Insular
Floras," the Introduction to New Zealand Flora, to Australia, your
Arctic Flora, and dear Galapagos, etc., etc., etc.? In imagination I am
grinding my teeth and choking you till I put sense into you. Farewell. I
have amused myself by writing an audaciously long letter. By the way, we
heard yesterday that George has won the second Smith's Prize, which I am
excessively glad of, as the Second Wrangler by no means always succeeds.
The examination consists exclusively of [the] most difficult subjects,
which such men as Stokes, Cayley, and Adams can set.

LETTER 385. A.R. WALLACE TO CHARLES DARWIN. March 8th, 1868.

...While writing a few pages on the northern alpine forms of plants
on the Java mountains I wanted a few cases to refer to like Teneriffe,
where there are no northern forms and scarcely any alpine. I expected
the volcanoes of Hawaii would be a good case, and asked Dr. Seemann
about them. It seems a man has lately published a list of Hawaiian
plants, and the mountains swarm with European alpine genera and
some species! (385/1. "This turns out to be inaccurate, or greatly
exaggerated. There are no true alpines, and the European genera are
comparatively few. See my 'Island Life,' page 323."--A.R.W.) Is not this
most extraordinary, and a puzzler? They are, I believe, truly oceanic
islands, in the absence of mammals and the extreme poverty of birds and
insects, and they are within the Tropics.

Will not that be a hard nut for you when you come to treat in detail on
geographical distribution? I enclose Seemann's note, which please return
when you have copied the list, if of any use to you.

LETTER 386. TO J.D. HOOKER. Down, February 21st [1870].

I read yesterday the notes on Round Island (386/1. In Wallace's "Island
Life," page 410, Round Island is described as an islet "only about a
mile across, and situated about fourteen miles north-east of Mauritius."
Wallace mentions a snake, a python belonging to the peculiar and
distinct genus Casarea, as found on Round Island, and nowhere else in
the world. The palm Latania Loddigesii is quoted by Wallace as "confined
to Round Island and tw