Summary

Thanks JDH for Asa Gray’s interesting letter.

Would like JDH’s copy of Coral reefs. Needs it for corrections for a new edition. Cannot buy one.

Summary

Reports on a séance. "The Lord have mercy on us all if we have to believe in such rubbish."

Asks JDH to vote for his nephew, Henry Parker, for Athenaeum membership.

Summary

An awful row at the Linnean Society. William Carruthers and Co. packed a meeting to throw out a decision of the Council. He was beaten by one vote (more than two-thirds majority needed).

Spent two hours with Lyell talking about Thomas Belt’s book [The naturalist in Nicaragua (1874)]: "the tropical old Glaciers beat the seance I do think".

Lyell agrees that the glacial epoch is the great geological crux of the day. Lowering of the ocean level must also be investigated.

Curious about A. C. Ramsay’s paper coming at Royal Society on 29th ["On the comparative value of certain geological ages", Proc. R. Soc. Lond. 22 (1874): 145–8].

Huxley’s new book [? Critiques and addresses (1873)].

Summary

The row at the Linnean Society and other troubles.

The Agricultural Society has sent Anton De Bary £100 to investigate the potato disease – an insult to M. J. Berkeley, who had worked on it for 30 years.

Summary

CD guessed Carruthers was stirred up by Owen. Disgraceful treatment of Bentham.

Work on Descent and Coral reefs stops his doing anything of real interest.

Asa Gray’s letter. CD has acknowledged the honour [honorary membership in the Boston Soc. Nat. Hist.].

"What a demon on earth Owen is. I do hate him."

Summary

"Half an answer" to CD’s query on visit of Sphinx to Hedychium gardnerianum.

Business affairs and family ill health keep him busy.

G. J. Allman will succeed Bentham as President of Linnean Society. Busk has refused.

Huxley is well.

JDH has indoctrinated Sir Stafford Northcote with his merits.

Lyell frail.

Old J. E. Gray goes on publishing.

"Is not [Thomas] Belt splendid!"

Summary

Thanks for information about Hedychium. Hopes wings of Sphinx will be found covered with pollen for that will be a fine bit of prophecy from the structure of a flower to special and new means of fertilisation.

Has been at Descent so hard he has done nothing, not even H. Spencer’s answer.

Has not yet read Croll ["Ocean currents", London Edinburgh & Dublin Philos. Mag. 47 (1874): 94–122, 168–90].

Has heard nothing about Carter and Eozoon. Eozoon, he infers, is done for.

Has read Belt [The naturalist in Nicaragua (1874)]: best of all natural history travel books.

Has written to Fritz Müller about leaf-carrying ants.

Hopes to resume work on Drosera.

Summary

Etty [Henrietta Litchfield] is helping with Coral reefs [2d ed.]; will JDH lend her his copy?

Summary

C. V. Riley’s case of Pronuba moth and the fertilisation of Yucca, is the most wonderful case of fertilisation ever published [Am. Nat. 7 (1873): 619–23].

Summary

Has "given the slip" to Nepenthes, but is setting a plant up in an enclosure for special observation.

Has some splendid Sarracenia and will perform any miracle regarding them CD puts him up to.

Charmed with CD’s account of Pinguicula. Would like to try whether Lychnis has the same use of viscid fluid.

Has written for English Utricularia for CD.

Summary

Thinks Frank and he have worked out Pinguicula well and they long to attack Utricularia. Tried several plants with sticky glandular hairs; some few absorb ammonia, but the greater number do not. If JDH sends plant or seed of Lychnis CD will examine it to see whether it catches many flies. Asa Gray has written him much about Sarracenia, with a specimen showing the splendid dodge by which ground insects are enticed up and then drowned. Describes how it may be investigated, to see whether it absorbs decayed matter from flies, or ammonia thus generated.

Summary

Sends results of his observations on Nepenthes. Would be grateful for any hints for further observations.

Summary

It would be interesting to prove that some plants feed on decayed animal matter whilst others like Drosera can digest fresh animal matter. Suggests the method for observing this.

Summary

The appetite of Nepenthes for hard-boiled egg is prodigious.

Summary

Suggests experiments to try [with Nepenthes]. Asks JDH to test whether cabbage seeds and peas exposed to the ferment germinate.

Summary

Asks what can be the meaning of appendages to tips of leaflets of enclosed Acacia or Mimosa.

Is at fibrin today.

Michael Foster suggests coagulation of protoplasm may be diseased, not digestive, symptom.

F. M. Balfour is at Kew today.

Summary

The Acacia must be Belt’s "Bulls’ horns".

The complexity of Utricularia has driven Frank and CD almost mad. Suspects it is necrophagous, i.e., it cannot digest, but absorbs decaying animal matter.

Foster is certainly in error. Every insect that Drosera catches causes aggregation.

Summary

JDH has told Murray that the Quarterly Review article attacking George [Darwin] and CD [137 (1874): 40–77] was "as base as it was baseless".

Summary

Two Nepenthes have devoured two pieces of fibrin [sketch shows size] in three days.

Has CD any objection to JDH’s giving an account of CD’s Drosera observations at Belfast [BAAS meeting] in a résumé of pitcher-plant results ["Address to the department of botany and zoology", Rep. BAAS 44 (1874): 102–16]?

Summary

"It is grand about Nepenthes."

JDH is welcome to notice in any way any of CD’s published or unpublished results with insectivorous plants. Gives an abstract of his observations on Drosera.