Summary

THH’s efforts to obtain Copley Medal for CD fail. Thanks THH for kind words of sympathy.

Summary

Will be proud to receive EH’s Die Radiolarien [1862].

Health continues very weak.

[P.S. 3 Jan] Has sent EH another letter by mistake.

Summary

Tells CD where to pick up the partridge’s foot with the ball of earth attached; sends a copy of his remarks on the same. [See Ann. & Mag. Nat. Hist. 3d ser. 13 (1864): 99–101.]

Summary

Has obtained fossils from Gibraltar that he believes are human. Requests Lyell’s address so that he can send the bones.

Summary

Asks whether he ought to write to CD while he is ill.

Wonders if he might use Haast’s notes on introduced animals for a notice he is preparing ["Note on the replacement of species in the colonies and elsewhere", Nat. Hist. Rev. n.s. 4 (1864): 123–7].

Summary

Sorry CD considers Horace Darwin unfit for school.

Summary

Requests tendril-bearing plants.

Summary

Will observe fertilisation of melastomads as CD requests.

Observations on fertilisation by ants.

Detailed observations on sexes in Catasetum, which were made before he received Orchids and which differ from CD’s findings.

Summary

Thanks for presentation copy of Linum paper [Collected papers 2: 93–105].

Ficus experiments confirm CD’s supposition that insects visit Melastoma for nectar, but HC thinks pollen-seekers fertilise the flowers.

Maranta fertilisation.

Summary

ED writes on behalf of her husband, who is ill, to thank FH for his letter

and to thank [L. C.] Treviranus for his paper on orchids.

CD wishes to know whether Orchis pyramidalis grows in FH’s neighbourhood. He needs a fresh specimen to compare the stigma with those grown locally.

Summary

Sends Primula MS, which CD has promised to communicate to Linnean Society [see 4213].

Will soon send results on peloric Antirrhinum.

Summary

Attacks by Falconer [Athenæum 4 Apr 1863, pp. 459–60] and Joseph Prestwich on Lyell.

W. B. Carpenter fails to attack Owen.

Welwitschia male cones with useless ovules marvellous example of lost function and retained structure.

JDH evaluates his sons.

Summary

Observations on Catasetum.

Figs require insects in order to set seed.

Summary

Preparation for his address with particular concern that JP approve the part relating to [Adam] Sedgwick. Urges JP to sit at dinner with him as a sign of approval of the award [of the Copley Medal].

Admits his own dismay regarding the efforts of the younger geologists and zoologists to obtain the Copley Medal for CD on the grounds of the Origin and his anxiety about the next year’s award.

Summary

Is working on a notice for the Natural History Review [n.s. 4 (1864): 37–43] of Huxley’s lectures to working men on the origin of species.

Summary

Sends description of Chrysosplene, asks about glands.

Summary

Glad CD likes his Presidential Address to Geological Society [1863].

Will continue the practice [of discussing the break in succession of strata].

Has devised a diagram showing number of genera and species in each geological formation and the number that pass from formation to formation.

Describes the glaciated terrain of S. Wales.

Summary

RT has sent his observations on orchids to CD. Has found only one case of an insect with a pollinium adhering to it.

Summary

Thanks RT for his letter and MS.

Is astonished by the different forms of orchids he describes.

Urges RT to describe and experiment with two or three of the more distinct genera.

"I believe, or am inclined to believe in one or very few primordial forms, from community of structure and early embryonic resemblances in each great class."

Summary

Discusses methods of pollination in orchids.

Thinks RT should investigate Physianthus to see if it requires insect aid for fertilisation as the Asclepiadaceae do.