_Frith Hill, Godalming. August 28, 1886._

My dear Meldola,--I have just read your reply to Romanes in _Nature_,
and so far as your view goes I agree, but it does not go far enough.
Professor Newton has called my attention to a passage in Belt's
"Nicaragua," pp. 207-8, in which he puts forth very clearly exactly your
view. I find I had noted the explanation as insufficient, and I hear
that in Darwin's copy there is "No! No!" against it. It seems, however,
to me to summarise _all_ that is of the slightest value in Romanes'
wordy paper. I have asked Newton (to whom I had lent it) to forward to
you at Birmingham a proof of my paper in the _Fortnightly_, and I shall
be much obliged if you will read it carefully, and, if you can, "hold a
brief" for me at the British Association in this matter. You will see
that a considerable part of my paper is devoted to a demonstration of
the fallacy of that part of "Romanes" which declares species to be
distinguished generally by useless characters, and also that
"simultaneous variations" do not usually occur.

On the question of sterility, which, as you well observe, is the core of
the question, I think I show that it could not work in the way Romanes
puts it. The objection to Belt's and your view is, also, that it would
not work unless the "sterility variation" was correlated with the
"useful variation." You assume, I think, this correlation, when you
speak of two of your varieties, B. and K., being _less fertile with the
parent form_. Without correlation they could not be so, only some few of
them. Romanes always speaks of his physiological variations as being
independent, "primary," in which case, as I show, they could hardly ever
survive. At the end of my paper I show a correlation which is probably
general and sufficient.