...--Yours very truly,
HENRY WALTER BATES.
* * * * *
TO H.W. BATES
_Amboyna. January 4, 1858._
My dear Bates,--My delay of six months in answering your very
interesting and most acceptable letter dated an ideal absurdity put
forth when such a simple hypothesis will explain _all the facts_.
I have been much gratified by a letter from Darwin, in which he says
that he agrees with "almost every word" of my paper. He is now preparing
for publication his great work on species and varieties, for which he
has been collecting information twenty years. He may save me the trouble
of writing the second part of my hypothesis by proving that there is no
difference in nature between the origin of species and varieties, or he
may give me trouble by arriving at another conclusion, but at all events
his facts will be given for me to work upon. Your collections and my own
will furnish most valuable material to illustrate and prove the
universal applicability of the hypothesis. The connection between the
succession of affinities and the geographical distribution of a group,
worked out species by species, has never yet been shown as we shall be
able to show it.
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