pleasant and very amusing letter. You have been
treated shamefully by Etty and me, but now that I know the facts,
the sentence seems to me quite clear. Nevertheless, as we have both
blundered, it would be well to modify the sentence something as follows:
"whilst, on the other hand, the plants which are related to those
of distant continents, but have no affinity with those of the mother
continent, are often very common." I forget whether you explain this
circumstance, but it seems to me very mysterious (380/1. Sir Joseph
Hooker wrote (March 23rd, 1867): "I see you 'smell a rat' in the matter
of insular plants that are related to those of [a] distant continent
being common. Yes, my beloved friend, let me make a clean breast of
it. I only found it out after the lecture was in print!...I have
been waiting ever since to 'think it out,' and write to you about it,
coherently. I thought it best to squeeze it in, anyhow or anywhere,
rather than leave so curious a fact unnoticed.")...Do always remember
that nothing in the world gives us so much pleasure as seeing you here
whenever you can come. I chuckle over what you say of And. Murray, but I
must grapple with his book some day.

LETTER 381. TO C. LYELL. Down, October 31st [1867].

Mr. [J.P. Mansel] Weale sent to me from Natal a small packet of dry
locust dung, under 1/2 oz., with the statement that it is believed that
they introduce new plants into a district. (381/1. See Volume I., Letter
221.) This statement, however, must be very doubtful. From this packet
seven plants have germinated, belonging to at least two kinds of
grasses. There is no error, for I dissected some of the seeds out of
the middle of the pellets. It deserves notice that locusts are sometimes
blown far out to sea. I caught one 370 miles from Africa, and I have
heard of much greater distances. You might like to hear the following
case, as it relates to a migratory bird belonging to the most wandering
of all orders--viz. the woodcock. (381/2. "Origin," Edition VI., page
328.) The tarsus was firmly coated with mud, weighing when dry 9 grains,
and from this the Juncus bufonius, or toad rush, germinated. By the way,
the locust case verifies what I said in the "Origin," that many possible
means of distribution would be hereafter discovered. I quite agree about
the extreme difficulty of the distribution of land mollusca. You will
have seen in the last edition of "Origin" (381/3. "Origin," Edition IV.,
page 429.