My life : a record of events and opinions - Wallace-online.org

254 MY LIFE" Fang Castle, June, 1870," Therm, jyl."Thanks worthy Signor for the entertainmentafforded by your Boke on Natural Selection. Butgood as ' Natural Selection ' is, or maybe : I likeMutual Selection much better ; and to my thinkingit is of much more importance : ex. gr. mutual selectionis this—A Lady asks me to become her husbandI ax her to become my wife—that's Mutual Selection—aint it 'Natural'.? The question of the 'fittest'is a subsequent affair : as is the Creation by birth,etc., etc." But the pleasure was sadly and suddenly interrupted: I was reading aloud, and got on pretty wellthrough p. 90-91. At 92 Jaws ached terribly! but atp. 94 and 5, even vulcanite could not stand it ; andto my horror my upper set of teeth gave way with acrash ! divided between the right lateral and thecanine. I was helpless ; and but for an old piece inreserve, my enjoyment of a succulent Roast Pigwould have been entirely destroyed : it cost me dear—quite the value of a collection : I must give upreading scientific {?) names aloud." I picked up a good specimen of Lignum ambulansfor a shilling a week ago : and it now forms a prominentfeature in our surgery, We are promised aPhyllium in a few days : and a Kallima paralekta.The Rosa Canina is a puzzle at present : I never sawa Red Canine tooth ! Speaking of teeth—Huxleyin his Physiology says Bicuspids never have morethan two fangs—He knows nothing about it. I havethem with three—Molars with 4, 5, and 6 ! In mylecture case, now before me, there are several : theyare not as common as dirt or earwigs in the country !but they often turn up.