Hoping you are in pretty good health, believe me yours very faithfully,
ALFRED R. WALLACE.
* * * * *
_Rose Hill, Dorking. July 23, 1877._
My dear Darwin,--Many thanks for your admirable volume on "The Forms of
Flowers." It would be impertinence of me to say anything in praise of
it, except that I have read the chapters on "Illegitimate Offspring of
Heterostyled Plants" and on "Cleistogamic Flowers" with great interest.
I am almost afraid to tell you that in going over the subject of the
Colours of Animals, etc., for a small volume of essays, etc., I am
preparing, I have come to conclusions directly opposed to _voluntary
sexual selection_, and believe that I can explain (in a general way)
_all_ the phenomena of sexual ornaments and colours by laws of
development aided by simple Natural Selection.
I hope you admire as I do Mr. Belt's remarkable series of papers in
support of his terrific "oceanic glacier river-damming" hypothesis. In
awful grandeur it beats everything "glacial" yet out, and it certainly
explains a wonderful lot of hard facts.
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