My dear Hooker

I have just been much pleased with getting your tiny note¹ & above all with your statement that you are free from your heart-pains. For Heaven sake take care of yourself. I have been a good-for-nothing dog for not having written to you long ago; it has not been from forgetting you; for if I had no other memento I have had your name in my list of unanswered correspondents for an awful period. But I have had a rather extra dose of unwellness all this summer; an extra number of correspondents, & an extra amount of work. Owing to the kindness of your Father & Miss Henslow, I have seen a good many of your letters,² & know what you have been doing. I was much grieved to hear sometime ago how ill Miss Hooker had been. You seem to have had great Botanical success,³ but I declare it made me tremble to see how very hard you work. Now please to remember that though your letters give me great pleasure, I deliberately repeat my request that you do not write to me: I know from former experience how much time letters consume.— As for news you c^d. not have a worse correspondent than myself; for I have hardly seen a soul this summer: you will have heard of Forbes’ marriage,⁴ & that is all I know of it— I almost grieve to think that I shall have no more of the old bachelor parties.⁵ Lyell has been Knighted in a very honourable manner, at the Queens private house in Scotland, where he staid some days.—⁶

I am extremely much obliged to you for not forgetting my species theory: pray thank M^r Hodgson cordially for me for the pamphlets; I have long been familiar with his name. I know well Pallas’ memoir.⁷ I have not lately done much in the species line, for I am becoming rapidly a complete Cirripede in my mind. I remember saying to you at Oxford (how pleasant a time that was!) that I felt as if a Barnacle had never been created; I shall never be able, I fear, to say that again. Though I have done little about species, I have struck up a cordial correspondence with a first-rate man, the author of the articles on Ornamental Poultry in Gardener’s Chronicle.—⁸

I have just finished Sir J. Ross’ Voyage;⁹ it is a poor book with little interest except the escapes from the ice: I except of course your Botanical summaries, which I have copied out in abstract, for they struck me as eminently well done. How I wish you had written the whole voyage. There was one other extract, which pleased both M^rs. D. & myself uncommonly,—that about the cattle hunting in the Falkland;¹⁰ I at first thought it must have been you, but then why was it not given under your name. Whoever the officer was, to my taste he is a first-rate describer—you & he together would indeed have made a first-rate book.—

I am glad to hear that you are struck with my case of the Supplemental males: I have lately reworked them most carefully. They have no mouth or stomach, but the natatory larva or rather pupa (for the larva in 2^d stage in no cirripede, I find, has a mouth) fixes itself on the hermaphrodite, develops itself into a great testis! & then dies & is succeeded by a fresh crop of these temporary Supplemental males. I have caught one lately at right epoch & its entire contents were a great sperm-receptacle full of perfect zoosperms.¹¹ I believe I have now got a far more curious case, but of it I will say nothing till more positive.— I have been delighted of late in having made out minutely the metamorphoses & consequently without any theory the homologies with ordinary crustacea. The shell of a Balanus, & even the whole peduncle & shell of Lepas is certainly the 3 anterior segments of the head, wonderfully modified & enlarged so as to receive the 14 succeeding cephalic, thoracic & abdominal segments; I declare I know of no more surprising metamorphosis, & it is perfectly clear & evident.—¹² Heaven forgive me for inflicting on you such a lecture on Barnacles; but I forget, that you are well entered on them,¹³ & I need not apologise. Oh if I c^d but make out the circulatory system, I think I sh^d have pretty well finished their anatomy. I have lately been trying to get up an agitation (but I shall not succeed & indeed doubt whether I have time & strength to go on with it) against the practice of naturalists appending for perpetuity the name of the first describer, to species.¹⁴ I look at this as a direct premium to hasty work, to naming instead of describing. A species ought to have a name so well known, that the addition of the author’s name would be superfluous & a pi⁠⟨⁠ece⁠⟩⁠ of empty vanity. At present, it would not do to give mere specific name, but I think zoologists might open the road to the omission, by referring to good systematic writers instead of to first describers. Botany, I fancy has not suffered so much as Zoolog. from mere naming; the characters, fortunately, are more obscure. Have you ever thought on this point? Why sh^d. Naturalists append their own names to new species, when Mineralogists & Chemists do not do so to new substances?

When you write to Falconer pray remember me affectionately to him: I grieve most sincerely to hear that he has been ill.

My dear Hooker, God Bless you & fare you well— Your sincere friend, | C. Darwin