Summary

CD has been experimenting on the fertility of peloric flowers, with the forlorn hope of illustrating sterility of hybrids; seeks further plants or seeds.

Summary

Asks JDH’s opinion, and botanical evidence, on important law: parts that are highly developed in comparison to other allied species are very variable.

Interest in hairiness of alpine plants revived by reading A. Moquin-Tandon [Éléments de tératologie végétale (1841)]; correlation with dryness. CD seeks interpretation independent of direct environmental effect.

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

Does not think the supposed cow–deer hybrid worth investigating.

John Robinson [the curate at Down] reported to be walking with girls at night.

Summary

Thanks JSH for all he has done. His botanical little girls are marvellous. His marking of the list of dubious species is what CD wanted. Explains that he wanted to ascertain whether closely allied forms belong to large or small genera.

Summary

Thanks OH for his book [see 9876]; agrees that the sudden appearance of many dicotyledons in the Upper Chalk is a perplexing phenomenon for the evolutionist.

Summary

Bentham has sent a damaged spurless Orchis pyramidalis; asks CL to send another. Fears they are irregular monsters. [See Orchids, pp. 47–8.]

Summary

Third edition of Origin will answer reviewers.

Drosera experiments detailed.

Hopes for W. H. Harvey’s conversion.

Summary

Comments on AW’s essay [on "Axolotl", Z. Wiss. Zool. 25 (suppl.) (1875): 297–342] with respect to evolutionary reversion. Peloric flowers must also be considered reversion.

Summary

Responds to suggestions and criticisms CD made to "theory of heredity" [see 10245].

Summary

Sends drawings of the pollen from Chinese Primula plants with styles and pistils of different lengths; observations on sizes and condition of their pollen.

Summary

Praises Dareste’s work on teratology; is convinced that it will be highly valued.

Is working on Variation; will send a copy when published.

Summary

Thanks for correction concerning the scarcity of fossil littoral shells.

Summary

Sends monstrous oranges,

red grape leaves,

and a bean with blue fruits (a hybrid of Phaseolus vulgaris and a Dolichos species).

Summary

Responds to Mivart’s Genesis of species. "I complain of his incessently speaking as if I trusted exclusively to natural selection … Mivart speaks in many places as if I entirely ignored the direct action of external conditions". Answers some of Mivart’s particular criticisms. Suggests FD read the letter to Marlborough Robert Pryor, as Pryor will never be able to read it himself.

Summary

Sends dandelion [enclosed] with peculiar form of achene; suggests this solitary "sport" must have arisen by sudden jump from normal type.

Summary

Describes experiments to test the fertility of Abutilon, which appears self-sterile,

and briefly mentions dichogamy in Eschscholzia.

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.

Summary

Has been writing a review of CD’s "Climbing plants" for Popular Science Review [5 (1866): 55–65].

Summary

Sends some examples of Gentiana that he thinks may shed light on the origin of double flowers. Since specimens grew in sterile soil their double flowering cannot be attributed to excess food. CD advances the hypothesis that some change in natural conditions causes sterility, which then causes compensatory development of petals, the organs closest in morphology to those whose functions have been checked.