Summary

Sends a proof title page and asks RO to send a list of plates and contents [of Fossil mammalia] to the printer, Mr Stewart.

Summary

Objections to Origin which Owen and Wilberforce could have used. Why have incipient mammalian forms not arisen from lower vertebrates on islands separated since Miocene period? Knows CD would not derive Eocene Mammalia from higher reptiles, but would bats not be modified into other mammalian forms on an ancient island? This is not the case in New Zealand. Why have island seals not become terrestrial? Assumes rate of change is greatest in mammals. Difficulties are small compared with ability to explain absence of Mammalia in pre-Pliocene islands. Asks about descent of Amblyrhynchus. Believes objections apply equally well to independent creation of animal types, but not if the First Cause is allowed completely free agency.

Summary

A reader of Descent offers two items: 1. Masters observed a pericardial fold in humans and other mammals which is a vestigial left superior vena cava;

2. JM suggests the frenum of the human penis became necessary for vis-à-vis copulation when man became bipedal.

Summary

Asks RO whether he has any MS [of Fossil Mammalia, no. 4] ready and to see that the plates are finished.

Summary

Discusses enclosed MS of CD’s review [of G. R. Waterhouse, A natural history of the Mammalia, vol. 1 (1846); Collected papers 1: 214–17].

Summary

Sends perfect revise of "Toxodon" [Fossil Mammalia] which he has read and marked.

Summary

Encloses the account of Smith, Elder & Co. for the first part of "The Zoology of the Voyage of H.M.S. Beagle" [Fossil Mammalia].

Summary

Is sending a cargo of specimens – birds’ skins, small quadrupeds, and fossil bones.

Describes his overland trip from Rio Negro to Buenos Aires and his expedition to Santa Fé.

Asks for mineralogical works to help him with the volcanic rocks of the west coast.

Summary

Has not been well.

Plans a geological trip to Glen Roy in Scotland.

Thanks WDF for remembering the crossing of animals, CD’s "prime hobby". "I really think some day I shall be able to do something on that most intricate subject species and varieties."

Summary

Wishes to propose John Lubbock as a member of the Entomological Society.

Asks for B. H. Hodgson’s pamphlet on sheep ["Tame sheep and goats", J. Asiat. Soc. Bengal 16 (1847): 1003–26]. Asks for odd numbers of GRW’s work [A natural history of the Mammalia (1846–8)]. Regrets that this work has stopped.

Summary

CD has heard from the Treasury; they will pay the account [for the Zoology] as soon as Smith, Elder & Co. like.

Summary

Sends remaining proofs of RO’s description of Toxodon [Fossil Mammalia] and a revise of first part. Will Owen want a second revise? CD has made "plenty of remarks".

Summary

Memorial concerning British Museum collection.

Relation of Cape of Good Hope and Australian flora a great trouble. CD’s high estimation of importance of glacial period for distribution.

Summary

It is strange that Agassiz, who is for the "sanctity of species", should favour Pallas’s view of hybrid origin of domestic dog.

CL has not meant to advocate successive creation of types but to question assumption that all mammals descended from single stock. Why should a Triassic reptile or bird not move towards mammalian form because an ancestral marsupial has appeared? Believes recent appearance of rodents and bats in Australia explains their lack of development.

Can CD supply a reference on plant extinction on St Helena?

Believes marsupials better adapted for surviving drought in Australia than higher mammals.

Will not press argument about lack of development of mammalian forms on islands, but CD should note objection.

Does CD’s belief in multiple origin of dogs affect faith in single primates in different regions?

Does time lapse between putative independently descended mammalian forms mean first form will "keep down" later incipient one? Thus Homo sapiens has prevented improvement of other anthropomorphs; bats and rodents on islands would prevent improvement of lower forms into mammalian.

Summary

Thinking about HF’s paper on Plagiaulax [Q. J. Geol. Soc. Lond. 13 (1857): 261–82]. Owen might answer that all Purbeck mammals are marsupials.

Summary

CD sorry RO is not well and fears work on Macrauchenia may have contributed. Thinks new name very good. Other details concerning publication [of Zoology, pt 1, no. 1].

Summary

Cancelled: enclosures to DCP-LETT-869. List of fossil Mammalia from the caverns of Minas Gerais purchased by the British Museum from Claussen.

Summary

Studying glacial drift in NW. England, he finds evidence of intense glacial activity, but the molluscan fauna does not appear to indicate a low sea temperature. Requests information on Tierra del Fuego molluscs for comparison.

Summary

The Lords Commissioners of Her Majesty’s Treasury approve CD’s request for £1000 in aid of publication [of Zoology].

Summary

Orders J. E. Tennent’s work on Ceylon [Sir James Emerson, afterwards Tennent, Ceylon, an account of the island, physical, historical, and topographical (1859)], and Richard Owen’s Classification and distribution of Mammalia [1859].