I have already sent in a short review of Roux's book, but should like to see about the bees in 'Kosmos.' I am trying some experiments with bees here on way-finding; but, contrary to my expectations, I find that most bees, when marked and liberated at one hundred yards from their hive, do not get back for a long time. This fact makes it more difficult to test their mode of way-finding, as the faculty (whatever it is) does not seem to be certain.
Many thanks for sending me the book on Worms so early. As yet I have only had time to look at the table of contents, which seems most interesting.
Lockyer is staying here just now, and has given me the proofs of his book. It seems to me that he has quite carried the position as to the elements being products of development.
Down: October 14.
My dear Romanes,—I have just read the splendid review of the Worm book in 'Nature.' I have been much pleased by it, but at the same time you so over-estimate the value of what I do, that you make me feel ashamed of myself, and wish to be worthy of such praise. I cannot think how you can endure to spend so much time over another's work, when you have yourself so much in hand; I feel so worn out, that I do not suppose I shall ever again give reviewers trouble.
I hope that your opus magnum is progressing well, and when we meet later in the autumn I shall be anxious to hear about it.
In a few days' time we are going to visit Horace in Cambridge for a week, to see if that will refresh me.
Pray give my kind remembrances to Mrs. Romanes, and I hope you are all well.
Garvock, Bridge of Earn, Perthshire: October 16, 1881.
My dear Mr. Darwin,—If I did not know you so well, I should think that you are guilty of what our nurse calls 'mock modesty.' At least I know that if I, or anybody else, had written the book which I reviewed, your judgment would have been the first to endorse all I have said. I never allow personal friendship to influence what I say in reviews; and if I am so uniformly stupid as to 'over-estimate the value of all you do,' it is at any rate some consolation to know that my stupidity is so universally shared by all the men of my generation. But your letters are to me always psychological studies, and especially so when, as in this one, you seem without irony intentionally grim to refer to my work in juxtaposition with your own.