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or partially rewritten, while two new ones were added. The longest article, occupying nearly a quarter of the volume, was one which I had written in 1865-6, but which was not published (in the Westminster Review) till July, 1867, and was entitled "Mimicry, and other Protective Resemblances among Animals." In this article I endeavoured to give a general account of the whole subject of protective resemblance, of which theory, what was termed by Bates "mimicry," is a very curious special case. I called attention to the wide extent of the phenomenon, and showed that it pervades animal life from mammals to fishes and through every grade of the insect tribes. I pointed out that the whole series of phenomena depend upon the great principle of the utility of every character, upon the need of protection or of concealment by almost all animals, and upon the known fact that no character are so variable as colour, and that therefore concealment has been most easily obtained by colour modification,

Coming to the subject of "mimicry" I gave a popular account of its principle, with numerous illustrations of its existence in all the chief groups of insects, not only in the tropics, but even in our own country. I also showed, I think for the first time, that it occurs among birds in a few wellmarked cases, and also in at least one instance among mammalia, and I explained why we could not expect it to occur more frequently among these higher animals.

Two other articles which may be just mentioned are those entitled "A Theory of Birds' Nests" and "The Limits of Natural Selection applied to Man." In the first I pointed out the important relation that exists between concealed nests and the bright colours of female birds, leading to conclusions adverse to Mr. Darwin's theory of colours and ornaments in the males being the result of female choice. In the other (the last in the volume) I apply Darwin's principle of natural selection, acting solely by means of "utilities," to show that certain physical modifications and mental faculties in man could not have been acquired through the preservation of useful variations, because there is some

direct evidence to show that they were not and are not useful in the ordinary sense, or, as Professor Lloyd Morgan well puts it, not of "life-preserving value," while there is absolutely no evidence to show that they were so. In reply, Darwin has appealed to the effects of female choice in developing these characteristics, of which, however, not a particle of evidence is to be found among existing savage races.

Besides the literary and scientific work now described, in the last three years of the period now dealt with I contributed about twenty letters or short papers to various periodicals, delivered several lectures, and reviewed a dozen books, including such important works as Darwin's "Descent of Man" and Galton's "Hereditary Genius." I also gave a Presidential Address to the Entomological Society in January, 1871, in which I discussed the interesting problems arising from the peculiarities of insular insects as especially illustrated by the beetles of Madeira.

As it was during the ten years of which I have now sketched my scientific and literary work that I saw most of my various scientific friends and acquaintances, and it was also in this period that the course of my future life and work was mainly determined, I will devote the next five chapters to a short summary of my more personal affairs, together with a few recollections of those friends with whom I became most familiar.

CHAPTER XXIV

HOME LIFE-MY FRIENDS AND ACQUAINTANCES-SIR

CHARLES LYELL

SOON after my return home in the spring of 1862, my oldest friend and schoolfellow, Mr. George Silk, introduced me to a small circle of his friends, who had formed a private chess club, and thereafter, while I lived in the vicinity of Kensington, I was invited to attend the meetings of the club. One of these friends was a Mr. L—, a widower with two daughters, and a son who was at Cambridge University. I sometimes went there with Silk on Sunday afternoons, and after a few months was asked to call on them whenever I liked in the evening to play a game with Mr. L—. On these occasions the young ladies were present, and we had tea or supper together, and soon became very friendly. The eldest Miss L-- was, I think, about seven or eight and twenty, very agreeable though quiet, pleasant looking, well educated, and fond of art and literature, and I soon began to feel an affection for her, and to hope that she would become my wife. In about a year after my first visit there, thinking I was then sufficiently known, and being too shy to make a verbal offer, I wrote to her, describing my feelings and asking if she could in any way respond to my affection. Her reply was a negative, but not a very decided one. Evidently my undemonstrative manner had given her no intimation of my intentions. She concluded her letter, which was a very kind one, by begging that I would not allow her refusal to break off my visits to her father.

At first I was inclined not to go again, but on showing

the letter to my sister and mother, they thought the young lady was favourably disposed, and that I had better go on as before, and make another offer later on. Another year passed, and thinking I saw signs of a change in her feelings towards me, but fearing another refusal, I wrote to her father, stating the whole circumstances, and asking him to ascertain his daughter's wishes, and, if she was now favourable, to grant me a private interview. In reply I was asked to call on Mr. L―, who inquired as to my means, etc., told me that his daughter had a small income of her own, and asked that I should settle an equal amount on her. This was satisfactorily arranged, and at a subsequent meeting we were engaged.

Everything went on smoothly for some months. We met two or three times a week, and after delays, owing to Miss L's ill-health and other causes, the wedding day was fixed and all details arranged. I had brought her to visit my mother and sister, and I was quite unaware of any cause of doubt or uncertainty when one day, on making my usual call, I was informed by the servant that Miss L—— was not at home, that she had gone away that morning, and would write. I came home completely staggered, and the next morning had a letter from Mr. L-, saying that his daughter wished to break off the engagement and would write to me shortly. The blow was very severe, and I have never in my life experienced such intensely painful emotion.

When the letter came I was hardly more enlightened. The alleged cause was that I was silent as to myself and family, that I seemed to have something to conceal, and that I had told her nothing about a widow lady, a friend of my mother's, that I had almost been engaged to. All this was to me the wildest delusion. The lady was the widow of an Indian officer, very pleasant and good-natured, and very gossipy, but as utterly remote in my mind from all ideas of marriage as would have been an aunt or a grandmother. As to concealment, it was the furthest thing possible from my thoughts; but it never occurs to me at any time to talk about myself, even my own children say that they know nothing about my early life; but if any one asks me and wishes to

know, I am willing to tell all that I know or remember. I was dreadfully hurt. I wrote, I am afraid, too strongly, and perhaps bitterly, trying to explain my real feelings towards her, and assuring her that I had never had a moment's thought of any one but her, and hoping that this explanation would suffice. But I received no reply, and from that day I never saw, or heard of, any of the family.

While these events were in progress, my dear friend, Dr. Richard Spruce, came home from Peru in very weak health, and, after staying a short time in London, went to live at Hurstpierpoint, in Sussex, in order to be near Mr. William Mitten, then the greatest English authority on mosses, and who had undertaken to describe his great collections from South America. This was in the autumn of 1864, and in the spring of 1865 I took a small house for myself and my mother, in St. Mark's Crescent, Regent's Park, quite near the Zoological Gardens, and within a pleasant walk across the park of the society's library in Hanover Square, where I had to go very often to consult books of reference. Here I lived five years, having Dr. W. B. Carpenter for a near neighbour, and it was while living in this house that I saw most of my few scientific friends.

During the summer and autumn I often went to Hurstpierpoint to enjoy the society of my friend, and thus became intimate with Mr. Mitten and his family. Mr. Mitten was an enthusiastic botanist and gardener, and knew every wild plant in the very rich district which surrounds the village, and all his family were lovers of wild flowers. I remember my delight, on the occasion of my first or second visit there, at seeing a vase full of the delicate and fantastic flowers of the large butterfly-orchis and the curious fly-orchis, neither of which I had ever seen before, and which I was surprised to hear were abundant in the woods at the foot of the downs. It was an immense delight to me to be taken to these woods, and to some fields on the downs where the bee-orchis and half a dozen other species grew abundantly, with giant cowslips nearly two feet high, the dyers' broom, and many other

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