On the other hand, I might
advance the giraffes, etc., in the Sewalik deposits. How I wish someone
would collect the plants of Banca! The puzzle of Java, Sumatra and
Borneo is like the three geese and foxes: I have a wish to extend
Malacca through Banca to part of Java and thus make three parallel
peninsulas, but I cannot get the geese and foxes across the river.
Many parts of your book have interested me much: I always wished to
hear an independent judgment about the Rajah Brooke, and now I have been
delighted with your splendid eulogium on him.
With respect to the fewness and inconspicuousness of the flowers in the
tropics, may it not be accounted for by the hosts of insects, so that
there is no need for the flowers to be conspicuous? As, according to
Humboldt, fewer plants are social in the tropical than in the temperate
regions, the flowers in the former would not make so great a show.
In your note you speak of observing some inelegancies of style. I notice
none. All is as clear as daylight. I have detected two or three errata.
In Vol. I. you write lond_i_acus: is this not an error?
Vol.
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