Summary

Reports the balloting [for Henry Parker at the Athenaeum?] went off just right.

Summary

Has rewritten paper on leaf arrangement after criticism by Royal Society referees. Has found new factor influencing leaf arrangement, i.e., spontaneous variability in the number of vertical leaf-ranks.

Summary

"Half an answer" to CD’s query on visit of Sphinx to Hedychium gardnerianum.

Business affairs and family ill health keep him busy.

G. J. Allman will succeed Bentham as President of Linnean Society. Busk has refused.

Huxley is well.

JDH has indoctrinated Sir Stafford Northcote with his merits.

Lyell frail.

Old J. E. Gray goes on publishing.

"Is not [Thomas] Belt splendid!"

Summary

Sends copy of his book [Der Darwinismus und die Naturforschung Newtons und Cuviers, vol. 1 (1874)]. Expresses respect for CD in spite of the book’s criticism of him.

Summary

His note on brain [in man and apes for 2d ed. of Descent] nearly finished.

Has heard nothing about Dohrn.

THH has been invited to lecture in America.

Summary

Writes on the possible origin of serpent-worship.

Is glad CD does not think his view regarding the two sides of the face is erroneous.

Summary

The row at the Linnean Society and other troubles.

The Agricultural Society has sent Anton De Bary £100 to investigate the potato disease – an insult to M. J. Berkeley, who had worked on it for 30 years.

Summary

Asks CD to read and comment, for publication, on his forthcoming essay in Index on the evolution of conscience and morals through action and reaction between man and the moral environment.

Summary

Has heard from Dohrn about his financial problems. Asks CD’s advice on what to do.

THH’s article in Contemporary Review ["Universities: actual and ideal" (1874), Collected essays, vol. 3 (1894)].

Summary

Thanks for MS which he intends to read while on a week’s holiday.

Sends thanks for Francis Darwin’s offer of help and says that Francis’s experiments on digestion are complete.

Summary

Thanks CD for his opinion on egging. Despite the intensity of the practice sufficient eggs always remain to carry on the breed.

Summary

Wishes CD could publish Origin with footnotes.

Increases in bird populations: starlings are increasing, but AN cannot give reason; mistletoe-thrush increasing but not ousting song-thrush. Doubts trustworthiness of [George?] Edwards, CD’s authority in Origin on this matter [see Origin, 6th ed., p. 59].

AN opposed to bird protection legislation to prohibit egging. Argues egging does not decrease number of birds.

Summary

Proposal to collect all of CD’s works in a German edition. Asks CD’s opinion and suggests an outline of volumes.

Lists German sales of various volumes.

Summary

Will be out of town, so he cannot vote for Henry Parker.

CD ought to come to see his Cetiosaurus, of which he draws a likeness.

Summary

On EA’s persecution by new government for liberal–republican position of his Revues; threat to remove him from Faculté de Droit, unless he renounces relations with Revues or changes their politics.

Has reviewed CD’s Orchids.

Summary

Questions correctness of two statements in Origin: 1. That fulmar petrels are the most numerous birds in the world;

2. That the increase of one form of thrush in Scotland has been concomitant with the decline of another form.

Summary

Notes on movements of Mimosa pudica.

Summary

Promises answers to CD queries on dogs.

Enclosure 1: G. A. Graham responds to CD’s questions (transmitted by GC) on greyhound breeding and proportion of sexes reared.

Enclosure 2: J. W. Robertson’s general rule has been to preserve male deerhound puppies in preference to females.

Enclosure 3: Proportion of sexes in dog litters [for Descent, 2d ed.] from W. Forbes.

Summary

Sends report on an infant with congenital heart disease who died at ten months. Post-mortem showed it had the "heart of a fish": two cavities, one auricle and one ventricle.

Summary

Sends abstract of Martin Ziegler’s paper on sensitive movements in Drosera ["Sur un fait physiologique observé sur des feuilles de Drosera", C. R. Hebd. Acad. Sci. 74 (1872): 1227–9].

JTM’s experiments with formic acid and ants have failed to reveal the secret of the ants, but have taught him a great deal about germination.