From Today's New York Times

To the Editor:

Your overture in “My Dear Fellow Species” (Week in Review, May 20) to the 150th anniversary celebration of Charles Darwin’s “Origin of Species” through his letters is a fine attempt to briefly summarize his personality.

But in a Darwin letter of April 3, 1880, which I have, where he thanks Georg Heinrich Schneider for sending him a copy of his recently published treatise “Der thierische Wille”—a valuable contribution to animal psychology—Darwin seems to sum up his life’s work in one sentence: “Everything about the minds of animals interests me greatly.”

Fittingly, few words, much content!

Alfred S. Posamentier
River Vale, N.J., May 20, 2007