14 AUGUST 1999, Page 28

Darwin's origin From Professor Stephen Jones Sir: I am grateful

to Hugh Lawson-Tancred for his generous review (Books, 31 July) of Almost Like a Whale, my attempt to update The Origin of Species. However, I must dis- claim any credit for the quoted description of the fossil record as a 'history of the world, imperfectly kept and written in a changing dialect'. Elegant that indeed is, but it is Darwin, not Jones — one of several brief borrowings from the great original, inserted in the hope of improving the tone of my own derivative efforts.

It was, though, perspicacious of your reviewer to pick out so accurately one of the rare plums in this pudding.

Steve Jones

31 Camden Square, London NW!