This is an egotistical note, but I have not seen a naturalist for months. Most sincerely and deeply do I hope that this note may find you almost recovered.
| To A. Hyatt. |
| Down, Dec. 4th, 1872. |
I thank you sincerely for your most interesting letter. You refer much too modestly to your own knowledge and judgment, as you are much better fitted to throw light on your own difficult problems than I am.
It has quite annoyed me that I do not clearly understand yours and Prof. Cope's views; and the fault lies in some slight degree, I think, with Prof. Cope, who does not write very clearly. I think I now understand the terms 'acceleration' and 'retardation'; but will you grudge the trouble of telling me, by the aid of the following illustration, whether I do understand rightly? When a fresh-water decapod crustacean is born with an almost mature structure, and therefore does not pass, like other decapods, through the Zoea stage, is this not a case of acceleration? Again, if an imaginary decapod retained, when adult, many Zoea characters, would this not be case of retardation? If these illustrations are correct, I can perceive why I have been so dull in understanding your views. I looked for something else, being familiar with such cases, and classing them in my own mind as simply due to the obliteration of certain larval or embryonic stages. This obliteration I imagined resulted sometimes entirely from that law of inheritance to which you allude; but that it in many cases was aided by Natural Selection, as I inferred from such cases occurring so frequently in terrestrial and fresh-water members of groups, which retain their several embryonic stages in the sea, as long as fitting conditions are present.
Another cause of my misunderstanding was the assumption that in your series
a—ab—abd—ae,
ad
the differences between the successive species, expressed by the terminal letter, was due to acceleration: now, if I understand rightly, this is not the case; and such characters must have been independently acquired by some means.
The two newest and most interesting points in your letter (and in, as far as I think, your former paper) seem to me to be about senile characteristics in one species appearing in succeeding species during maturity; and secondly about certain degraded characters appearing in the last species of a series. You ask for my opinion: I can only send the conjectured impressions which have occurred to me and which are not worth writing. (It ought to be known whether the senile
