Darwin-Hooker Letters : Letter from C. R. Darwin to J. D. Hooker   14 March [1862]

Darwin, Charles Robert

Darwin-Hooker Letters

<p style='text-align: justify;'>Thinks JDH is a bit hard on Asa Gray.</p><p style='text-align: justify;'>Bates’s letter is that of a true thinker. Asks to see JDH’s to Bates. Point raised in it is most difficult. "There is one clear line of distinction; – when many parts of structure as in woodpecker show distinct adaptation to external bodies, it is preposterous to attribute them to effect of climate etc. – but when a single point, alone, as a hooked seed, it is conceivable that it may thus have arisen." His study of orchids shows nearly all parts of the flower co-adapted for fertilisation by insects and therefore the result of natural selection. <i>Mormodes ignea</i> "is a prodigy of adaptation".</p>