40 The Germs of Brew/ion

of the jubilee number, a further search was made, but the Dialogue
was not found and I gave it up for lost.

In March, 1912, Mr. R. A. Streaffeild pointed out to me that
Mr. Tregaskis, in Holborn, was advertising for sale an auto-
graph letter by Charles Darwin sending to an unknown editor
a Dialogue on Species from a New Zealand newspaper, described
in the letter as being " remarkable from its spirit and from giving
so clear and accurate a view of Mr. D.'s theory." Having
no doubt that this referred to Butler's lost contribution tc the
Press, I bought the autograph letter and sent it to New Zealand,
where it now is in the Canterbury Museum, Christchurch.
With it I sent a letter to the editor of the Press, giving all farther
information in my possession about the Dialogue. This letter,
which appeared I June, 1912, together with the presentation of
Darwin's autograph, stimulated further search, and in the
issue for zoth December, 1862, the Dialogue was found by Miss
Colborne-Veel, whose father was editor of the paper at the time
Butler was writing for it. The Press reprinted the Dialogue
Sth June, 1912.

When the Dialogue first appeared it excited a great dcd of
discussion in the colony and, to quote Butler's words in a idler
to Darwin (1865), " called forth a contemptuous rejoinder jrom
(I believe] the Bishop of Wellington." This rejoinder was. an
article headed ll Barrel-Organs," the idea being that there was
nothing new in Darwin's book, it was only a grinding out of
old tunes with which we were all familiar.' Butler alludes to
this controversy in a note made on a letter from Darwin which
he gave to the British Museum, " I remember answering an
attack (in the Press, New Zealand) on me by Bishop Abraham,
of Wellington, as though I were someone else, and, fo keep up
the deception, attaching myself also. But it was all very young
and silly." The bishop's article and Butler*s reply, which
was a letter signed A. M. and some of the resisting correspondence
were reprinted in the Press, 15^/2. June, 1912.

At first I thought of including here the Dialogue, and perhaps
the letter signed A. M. They are interesting as showing that
Butler was among the earliest to study closely the Origin of
Species, and also as showing the state of his mind before he
began to think for himself, before he wrote Darwin among the
Machines from which so much followed; b^tt they can hardly
be properly considered as germs o/Erewhon and Life and Habit.