My dear Mr. Poulton,—­My attention has been called by Mr. Herdman, in his Inaugural Address to the Liverpool Biological Society, to Galton’s paper on “Heredity,” which I read years ago but had forgotten.  I have just read it again (in the Journal of the Anthropological Institute, Vol.  V., p. 329, Jan., 1876), and I find a remarkable anticipation of Weismann’s theories which I think should be noticed in a preface to the translation of his book.[17] He argues that it is the undeveloped germs or gemmules of the fertilised ovum that form the sexual elements of the offspring, and thus heredity and atavism are explained.  He also argues that, as a corollary, “acquired modifications are barely if at all inherited in the correct sense of the word.”  He shows the imperfection of the evidence on this point, and admits, just as Weismann does, the heredity of changes in the parent like alcoholism, which, by permeating the whole tissues, may directly affect the reproductive elements.  In fact, all the main features of Weismann’s views seem to be here anticipated, and I think he ought to have the credit of it.

Being no physiologist, his language is not technical, and for this reason, and the place of publication perhaps, his remarkable paper appears to have been overlooked by physiologists.

I think you will find the paper very suggestive, even supplying some points overlooked by Weismann.—­Yours faithfully,

A.R.  WALLACE.

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TO PROF.  POULTON

Hamilton House, The Croft, Hastings.  February 19, 1889.

Dear Mr. Poulton,—­Do you happen to have, or can you easily refer to, Grant Allen’s small books of collected papers under such titles as “Vignettes from Nature,” “The Evolutionist at Large,” “Colin Clout’s Calendar,” and another I can’t remember?  In one of them is a paper on the Origin of Wheat, in which he puts forth the theory that the grasses, etc., are degraded forms which were once insect-fertilised, summing up his views in the phrase, “Wheat is a degraded lily,” or something like that.  Now Henslow, in his “Floral Structures,"[18] adopts the same theory for all the wind-fertilised or self-fertilised flowers, and he tells me that he is alone in the view.  I believe the view is a true one, and I want to give G. Allen the credit of first starting it, and want to see how far he went.  If you have or can get this work of his with that paper, can you lend it me for a few days?  I know not who to write to for it, as botanists of course ignore it, and G. Allen himself is, I believe, in Algeria....—­Yours faithfully,

ALFRED R. WALLACE.

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HERBERT SPENCER TO A.R.  WALLACE

38 Queen’s Gardens, Lancaster Gate, W. May 18, 1889.