I fear the Pacific Islands must be far distant in futurity.

I fear, indeed, that Forbes is going rather too quickly ahead; but we shall soon see all his grounds, as I hear he is now correcting the press on this subject; he has plenty of people who attack him; I see Falconer never loses a chance, and it is wonderful how well Forbes stands it.

What a very striking fact is the botanical relation between Africa and Java; as you now state it, I am pleased rather than disgusted, for it accords capitally with the distribution of the mammifers (320/3.

See Wallace, "Geogr.
Distribution," Volume I., page 263, on the "special Oriental or even Malayan element" in the West African mammals and birds.): only that I judge from your letters that the Cape differs even more markedly than I had thought, from the rest of Africa, and much more than the mammifers do.

I am surprised to find how well mammifers and plants seem to accord in their general distribution.