Summary

Sends a box of orchids.

Summary

Lyell’s volume [Principles, 10th ed.] received.

"We must now keep him straight anent origin and development."

Some of Spencer’s new part is interesting but much is dull and ponderous.

Huxley’s Elementary physiology [1866].

Has finished his New Zealand manual [Handbook of New Zealand flora (1864–7)]. New Zealand flora [and past geological conditions] suggest islands were once connected.

Speculates on the total amount of living organised matter on the globe, and whether it varies.

Balfour Stewart on sunspots.

Summary

Wants to publish his observation on colour changes in Matthiola seeds.

Has been crossing cotton.

Approves of C. V. Naudin and Max Wichura.

Summary

CD has followed Lyell’s advice and avoided controversy over Origin but encourages BDW to attack S. H. Scudder and others who argue foolishly or misquote him.

Summary

Gustav von Leonhard and Hans Bruno Geinitz’s Neues Jahrbuch für Mineralogie, Geologie und Paläontologie [1862–79] unfriendly to CD’s theory.

Lists various German publications dealing with CD’s theory.

Summary

Comments on CD’s health.

Discusses origin of life and differentiation of principal classes of plants and animals.

Discusses Generelle Morphologie and its chapter on embryological development.

His lectures on CD’s theory.

Asks CD for larger portrait of himself and for several copies of the small photograph. Will send photographs of German scientists in exchange.

Summary

Has forwarded FH’s paper on Fumariaceae to horticultural congress. Comments on its findings.

Discusses forms of Oxalis.

Summary

Asks CD to send W. R. Grove titles and place of publication of the Müller [Für Darwin (1864)] and Walsh (Walsh 1864–5) papers he referred to in his address [BAAS lecture at Nottingham, see 5135].

Summary

A confounded cock ground the crimson seeds up so CD could not find them in its excrement. CD is puzzled by how seeds can be disseminated if merely ground up by birds. Perhaps like acorns from seeds accidentally dropped by birds?

A woodcock’s leg with dry clay clinging to it, from which CD has grown a microscopical rush.

Spencer would have been wonderful if he had trained himself to observe more.

On New Zealand flora and connection with Australia.

Difficulty of speculating about the amount of organic chemical change at different periods.

Summary

Scarlet seed is Adenanthera pavonina. JDH’s suggestion on how disseminated.

On Herbert Spencer, "all oil no bone – a thinking pump", but his paper on sap and wood [Trans. Linn. Soc. Lond. 25 (1866): 405–30] is good science. His refusal to bring a specimen for analysis when confronted by JDH.

Bentham and Martin disagreement.

Speculations on New Zealand flora.

Albert Günther’s paper on fishes on each side of Isthmus of Panama [Proc. Zool. Soc. Lond. (1866): 600–4].

On the quantity (bulk and weight) of organic life [matter].

Summary

Lyell wants to see JDH’s last letter [the part on glacial periods]. Lyell full of concern about astronomical causes of heat and cold on the globe.

Encloses letter from John Scott.

Summary

Comments on CWvN’s Die Entstehung und Begriff [der Naturhistorischen Art (1864)].

Discussion of beauty of flowers in new edition of Origin not based on CWvN’s article.

Comments on CWvN’s argument that flower structures are not due to natural selection.

Summary

Comments on JDH’s list – very good, but Orchids and Primula paper have too indirect a bearing to be worth mentioning. The Eozoon is a very important fact and to a much lesser degree the Archaeopteryx. Müller’s Für Darwin [1864] perhaps the most important contribution.

CD has forgotten to mention Bates on variation and JDH’s Arctic paper ["Distribution of Arctic plants", Trans. Linn. Soc. Lond. 23 (1862): 251–348] in new edition of Origin.

Now finds that Owen claims to be originator of natural selection.

Summary

Gives CD reference to case of the saiga, an antelope, fearless of man.

Reports observations by New Zealander who has seen heaps of pebbles presumably voided by Dinornis.

Summary

Declines contributing to Land and Water. Asks if Frank Buckland can insert a question about the feet of otter hounds.

Summary

Discusses exchange of photographs with German scientists.

Comments on attitudes of German scientists toward CD’s theory.

Names several scientists who exchanged photographs: Braun, Virchow, Leydig, and Dohrn.

Summary

Sends flowers of buckthorn [Rhamnus catharticus] collected on Isle of Wight.

Summary

Last fascicles of FR’s book Der Mensch [1866] being sent.

Finds roots of human race in Negroes of Africa, Bushmen of South Africa and New Guinea, and short-headed peoples of south Asia.

Has translated natural selection as natürliche Auslese.

Ludwig Rütimeyer active in developing the descent of mammals.

Summary

A report on his somewhat improved health.

Summary

Thanks for criticism of proofs of his paper [see 5117].

Not sure whether CD believes in reversion and would like a positive statement as this is the one point C. V. Naudin especially observed. Naudin offers his remarks on ovules as a matter to be proved ["Nouvelles recherches sur l’hybridité", Nouv. Arch. Mus. Hist. Nat. 1 (1865): 25–176].