My dear Wallace,--I have now finished the whole of Vol. I., with the same interest and admiration as before; and I am convinced that my judgment was right and that it is a memorable book, the basis of all future work on the subject. I have nothing particular to say, but perhaps you would like to hear my impressions on two or three points. Nothing has struck me more than the admirable and convincing manner in which you treat Java. To allude to a very trifling point, it is capital about the unadorned head of the Argus pheasant.[102] How plain a thing is, when it is once pointed out! What a wonderful case is that of Celebes! I am glad that you have slightly modified your views with respect to Africa,[103] and this leads me to say that I cannot swallow the so-called continent of Lemuria, i.e. the direct connection of Africa and Ceylon![104] The facts do not seem to me many and strong enough to justify so immense a change of level. Moreover, Mauritius and the other islands appear to me oceanic in character. But do not suppose that I place my judgment on this subject on a level with yours. A wonderfully good paper was published about a year ago on India in the _Geological Journal_--I _think_ by Blandford.[105] Ramsay agreed with me that it was one of the best published for a long time. The author shows that India has been a continent with enormous fresh-water lakes from the Permian period to the present day. If I remember right he believes in a former connection with South Africa. I am sure that I read, some 20 to 30 years ago, in a French journal, an account of teeth of mastodon found in Timor; but the statement may have been an error. With respect to what you say about the colonising of New Zealand, I somewhere have an account of a frog frozen in the ice of a Swiss glacier, and which revived when thawed. I may add that there is an Indian toad which can resist salt water and haunts the seaside. Nothing ever astonished me more than the case of the Galaxias; but it does not seem known whether it may not be a migratory fish like the salmon. It seems to me that you complicate rather too much the successive colonisations with New Zealand. I should prefer believing that the Galaxias was a species, like the Emys of the Sewalik Hills, which has long retained the same form. Your remarks on the insects and flowers of New Zealand have greatly interested me; but aromatic leaves I have always looked at as a protection against their being eaten by insects or other animals; and as insects are there rare, such protection would not be much needed. I have written more than I intended, and I must again say how profoundly your book has interested me.