Summary

Suggests Englishmen who might provide sponge specimens.

Summary

Replies to JDH on Hallett; doubts that already improved varieties do not vary in other respects.

The North British Review article [see 6841] is worth reading "scientifically"; it made CD feel small.

Awaits JDH’s decision on affinities of Drosophyllum and Drosera.

Is curious to see proportion of males to females in recent census in India.

Summary

Sends title of Kerner’s book [see 6997] and comments that AK does not give the one parent form of the genus.

Summary

Last letter was written to be passed on for Lushington’s edification. "(Standing on the points of my toes and my tail very stiff)." Is tiring of controversy as a waste of time. Begins to understand CD’s sufferings over Origin.

Summary

Thanks AG for full answers to queries.

Delighted Mr Ford will undertake drawings [for Descent]; comments on some illustrations he would like.

Summary

Thanks GM for specimens of Drosophyllum; by a strange coincidence CD has also received plants from a correspondent in Oporto [W. C. Tait].

Summary

Thanks EB for his attempts to find out about the mandrills;

sorry to hear that he has been so badly treated by the manager of Land and Water.

Summary

Role of humming-birds in plant fertilisation.

Alexander Agassiz has visited Down.

Sales of Facts and arguments for Darwin.

Encloses copy of T. H. Farrer letter [7015] and observations on the self-sterility of Eschscholzia.

Summary

CD signed the petition, had Sir Charles Lyell do so also, and then forwarded the memorial to Sir John Lubbock.

Summary

Results of CD’s examination of data subvert JB’s former inferences. Will send abstracts from the data for his paper on colour of hair of single and married women 35 to 45 years old ["On the supposed increasing prevalence of dark hair in England", Anthropol. Rev. 1 (1863): 310–12].

Summary

Asks whether AMN has any specimens of British calcareous sponges that CD could forward to Haeckel, who is studying them.

Summary

Thanks for information about expression.

Comments on JC-B’s photographs of insane people.

Sends copy of Duchenne [see 6755].

Asks for further information about platysma, his bête noire for a year or two.

Summary

Thanks JO for intending to dedicate his The Andes and the Amazon to him.

The discovery of marine shells high up the Amazons CD finds extremely interesting.

Summary

Haeckel wants British specimens of calcareous sponges. Can THH tell him to whom he can apply?

Health not improving – cannot climb even a hill.

Has heard THH’s article on Comte ["Scientific aspects of Positivism", Lay sermons (1870)] is a splendid success.

Summary

Comments on A. W. Bennett’s letter [Nature 1 (1869): 58] on fertilisation of winter-flowering plants. CD used net, not a bell-glass to cover Lamium.

Refers to F. Delpino’s observations on fertilisation of grasses; CD is glad to say these observations are compatible with "the very general law that distinct individual plants must be occasionally crossed".

Summary

Sends photograph of Sir C. Lyell and Professor Owen, generally considered our most distinguished [British] naturalists. Includes the requested photograph of himself [see 6720].

Summary

Glad to know about C.B.

Thinks better of Nature than JDH does.

Likes Academy.

Is reading Anton Kerner on Tubocytisus [in Die Abhängigkeit der Pflanzen von Klima und Boden (1869)].

The genealogical tree reveals the very steps of the formation of the species.

Mlle Royer has brought out a third edition of her translation of the Origin without informing CD, so corrections to fourth and fifth English editions are lost. Has arranged for a new translator of the fifth English edition.

Summary

Visiting arrangements.

Summary

FM much gratified by the appearance of Für Darwin translation.

Discusses dimorphism in Rubiaceae.

Summary

Sends specimens of Passiflora and seeds for T. H. Farrer [letter enclosed with 7188].