Summary

Discusses crosses in sweetpeas and the difference between monstrosities and slight variations. Discusses peloric flowers.

Thanks for correction about furze.

Summary

Cases of monstrosities becoming transmissible.

Comments on passages in Origin on the blindness of the tucu-tucu (Ctenomys) and Mammoth Cave rats.

Summary

Agassiz is strongly opposed to Origin, but CD thinks K. E. von Baer may come out in support.

Discusses the possibility of favourable monstrosities in the light of Theophilus Parsons’ essay ["On the origin of species", Am. J. Sci. 2d ser. 30 (1860): 1–13].

Summary

Encloses reviews by Asa Gray and Bronn. Comments on Bronn review. Mentions review by Wollaston.

Comments on paper by W. H. Harvey in Gardeners’ Chronicle [(1860): 145–6]. Discusses Harvey’s belief in the permanence of monsters.

Discusses CL’s objection that still-living primitive forms failed to develop.

The survival of Lepidosiren and other primitive types of fish and mammals.

Summary

Glad to hear of MTM’s papers [? "On a peloria and semidouble flower of Ophrys aranifera, Huds.", J. Linn. Soc. Lond. (Bot.) 8 (1865): 207–11 and "Observations on the morphology and anatomy of the genus Restio, Linn.", J. Linn. Soc. Lond. (Bot.) 8 (1865): 211–55].

CD doubts the value, for origin of species, of parallels between peloria in "distinct groups".

Gärtner proved the stigma can select its own pollen from a mixture of foreign pollens. But much evidence shows varieties of same species are prepotent over a plant’s own pollen.

MTM’s father [William] believes that variation goes on for a long time once it has commenced.

Summary

Gradation in the eye.

Hooker intends to reply [to W. H. Harvey’s article in Gard. Chron. (1860): 145–6].

Discusses Aspicarpa with respect to correlation.

Comments on monstrous animals.

Discusses objections of Bronn and Asa Gray to natural selection. Cites parallel between natural selection and Newton’s concept of gravitation.

Mentions German experiments on spontaneous generation.

Summary

His thanks for the pamphlet ["Remarks on the final causes of the sexuality of plants" (1860)] and the extremely kind and liberal manner in which Daubeny alludes to CD’s work.

Further discussion of sexual generation and CD’s suspicion that its most important function remains hidden.

Summary

Third edition of Origin will answer reviewers.

Drosera experiments detailed.

Hopes for W. H. Harvey’s conversion.

Summary

Sees Huxley’s deification of matter and force as a reaction to the way Paley likened the "Unknown Cause" to the mind of man so that new causes could be introduced. If you wish to retain free will which is inconsistent with constant law, Paley’s position is better. Free will is a recently introduced cause on our planet. It cannot be fully attributed to secondary causes.

What CD says about the variation in gestation of the hound is remarkable.

The astonishing fertile rabbit–hare hybrids encourage belief in Pallas’s theory of the multiple origin of dogs.

Does the regularity of gestation in man indicate a common stock?

Hooker’s observation of absence of forms peculiar to extra-Arctic Greenland indicates that the time since the beginning of the glacial period is brief in geological terms.