Dear Wallace,--I am much obliged for your extract; I never heard of such a case, though such a variation is perhaps the most likely of any to occur in a state of nature and be inherited, inasmuch as all domesticated birds present races with a tuft or with reversed feathers on their heads. I have sometimes thought that the progenitor of the whole class must have been a crested animal. Do you make any progress with your Journal of travels? I am the more anxious that you should do so as I have lately read with much interest some papers by you on the ouran-outang, etc., in the _Annals_, of which I have lately been reading the latter volumes, I have always thought that Journals of this nature do considerable good by advancing the taste for natural history; I know in my own case that nothing ever stimulated my zeal so much as reading Humboldt's Personal Narrative. I have not yet received the last part of _Linnean Transactions_, but your paper[47] at present will be rather beyond my strength, for though somewhat better I can as yet do hardly anything but lie on the sofa and be read aloud to. By the way, have you read Tylor and Lecky?[48] Both these books have interested me much. I suppose you have read Lubbock?[49] In the last chapter there is a note about you in which I most cordially concur.[50] I see you were at the British Association, but I have heard nothing of it except what I have picked up in the _Reader_. I have heard a rumour that the _Reader_ is sold to the Anthropological Society. If you do not begrudge the trouble of another note (for my sole channel of news through Hooker is closed by his illness), I should much like to hear whether the _Reader_ is thus sold. I should be very sorry for it, as the paper would thus become sectional in its tendency. If you write, tell me what you are doing yourself. The only news which I have about the "Origin" is that Fritz Müller published a few months ago a remarkable book[51] in its favour, and secondly that a second French edition is just coming out.--Believe me, dear Wallace, yours very sincerely, CH. DARWIN. * * * * * _9 St. Mark's Crescent, Regents Park. October 2, 1865._ Dear Darwin,--I was just leaving town for a few days when I received your letter, or should have replied at once.