olour selection, and
your speaking of insects as having a sense of "the beautiful" in colour,
as if that were a known fact. But that is a wide question, requiring
full discussion.--Yours very faithfully,

ALFRED R. WALLACE.

* * * * *

TO SIR FRANCIS DARWIN

_Frith Hill, Godalming. November 20, 1887._

Dear Mr. Darwin,--Many thanks for the copy of your father's "Life and
Letters," which I shall read with very great interest (as will all the
world). I was not aware before that your father had been so
distressed--or rather disturbed--by my sending him my essay from
Ternate, and I am very glad to feel that his exaggerated sense of honour
was quite needless so far as I was concerned, and that the incident did
not in any way disturb our friendly relations. I always felt, and feel
still, that people generally give me far too much credit for my mere
sketch of the theory--so very small an affair as compared with the vast
foundation of fact and experiment on which your father worked.--Believe
me yours very faithfully,

ALFRED R. WALLACE.

* * * * *

TO MRS. FISHER (_nee_ BUCKLEY)

_Frith Hill, Godalming. February 16, 1888._

My dear Mrs. Fisher,--I know nothing of the physiology of ferns and
mosses, but as a matter of fact I think they will be found to increase
and diminish together all over the world. Both like moist, equable
climates and shade, and are therefore both so abundant in oceanic
islands, and in the high regions of the tropics.

I am inclined to think that the reason ferns have persisted so long in
competition with flowering plants is the fact that they thrive best in
shade, flowers best in the light. In our woods and ravines the flowers
are mostly spring flowers, which die away just as the foliage of the
trees is coming out and the shade deepens; while ferns are often dormant
at that time, but grow as the shade increases.

Why tree-ferns should not grow in cold countries I know not, except that
it may be the winds are too violent and would tear all the fronds off
before the spores were ripe. Everywhere they grow in ravines, or in
forests where they are sheltered, even in the tropics. And they are not
generally abundant, but grow in particular zones only. In all the Amazon
valley I don't remember ever having seen a tree-fern....

I too am struggling with my "Popular Sketch of Darwinism," and am just
now doing a chapter on the great "hy