Summary

Wild cat gestation is twelve days longer than domestic cat, a fact not mentioned in Variation.

Summary

[Copy of some rough notes.] References about species. Variations within species.

Summary

Wonders whether CD has any idea how the cuckoo manages to match its eggs to those of its host; believes it possible that the diet of the nestling cuckoo, which varies with its host, may affect its behaviour and the colour of its eggs.

Summary

Sends copy of Land and Water, a journal he now edits. Has quit the Field. Asks CD to patronise his columns with queries, as other zoologists do.

Summary

Bees’ cells; is the hexagonal shape deliberate or merely the result of lateral pressure on cylinders?

Summary

He has gone through the whole embryology of the Crustacea and has arrived at a pretty well-established genealogy of the whole class; has even tried to write a history of the whole tribe. Finds he cannot adopt the old separation of Orders in the Class; the limits between them are indistinct.

Would like to study embryology of Limulus. Asks CD’s help in obtaining a female specimen.

Outlines his proposal to establish a marine zoological station.

Summary

E. R. Lankester is in danger of being black-balled for admission to the Linnean Society; Thiselton-Dyer is in the midst of the fight.

Summary

Thanks CD for notes concerning the development of his ideas about the origin of species. Says August Schleicher and Carl Gegenbaur also interested.

Names new supporters of CD’s theory, including Max Schultze, Rudolf Leuckart, and Alexander Braun. Zoologists have been more interested than botanists.

He is writing a general work on the relationships among animals [Generelle Morphologie der Organismen (1866)].

Comments on Fritz Müller’s Für Darwin [1864].

Gegenbaur is revising his Grundzüge der vergleichenden Anatomie [2d ed. (1870)] to accord with evolution.

Thanks CD for copy of book on balanids [Living Cirripedia, vol. 2].

Summary

Defines the term "typical species" and discusses its use among zoologists. Cites example of type of Carnivora. Comments on general law of development of parts in animals. Cites teeth of Carnivora.

Summary

Sends the 1872 Report of the U. S. Geological Survey of the Territories, for which he was zoologist.

Most American naturalists support CD. His study of ornithology convinced him.

Lepus bairdii has a distribution limited to Yellowstone Lake.

No doubt CD knows of O. C. Marsh’s horse fossils.

Summary

His gratitude for CD’s gift. An account of his difficulties with the Zoological Station and his health.

F. M. Balfour has told him that CD would like to see the question of complemental males in cirripedes studied again. AD would like to enter the field and to study the whole morphological development of cirripedes.

Describes the interest in embryological work in Russia and Germany.

Summary

Asks for a testimonial for Edward Newman.

Discusses the Origin, considers natural selection works well when applied to the evolution of nations and groups of men; on the other hand feels the classification of mineral elements is a damaging analogy as it parallels organic classification but could not be derived by any evolutionary means.

Summary

Thanks CD for his kind offer [of translation rights for Descent].

Feels it a duty to make CD’s "way of looking to fields [recte facts] under the guidance of ideas" known to his countrymen, especially since zoologists and physiologists seem to think science is nothing but the accumulation of facts and have almost forgotten to reason about them.

Explains that, contrary to Carl Vogt’s report to CD, he continues as Professor of Comparative Anatomy at Leipzig, but he has failed to get the place of the late Professor of Zoology, as he had hoped.

Summary

Sends his book [Naturwissenschaftliche Thatsachen und Probleme. Populäre Vorträge (1880)].

Anxious to receive Movement in plants because CD’s methods may be applicable to his experiments on the earliest movements of animal embryos.

Summary

Distribution of varieties and subspecies.

George Maw’s review of the Origin [Zoologist 19 (1861): 7577–611].

Summary

Have received Movement in plants. It will interest not only botanists but zoologists and biologists.

Ten years ago AD-P encountered great opposition when he started teaching Darwinism at Zurich. Now all except old Oswald Heer call themselves Darwinists.

Summary

A letter from CD’s admirers in the Netherlands, sent with an album of their photographs, in celebration of his sixty-eighth birthday.

Presents an account of early efforts in the Netherlands in the direction of developmental theories, and evidence of the support and enthusiastic reception given CD’s theory.

Summary

Retention of horns by female deer with fawn [see Descent, 2d ed., p. 503].

Summary

Criticises sexual selection theory. Supports natural selection.

Gives CD references on proportion of sexes in spiders.

Summary

Encloses two sets of notes [see 1761 and 1762]. EB believes that as a general rule species do not inter-mix in nature whereas varieties, descendants of a common stock, do. Origin of varieties. Geographically separated species are sometimes obviously distinct and sometimes apparently identical. EB does not believe that species or races of independent origin need necessarily differ. Local distribution of species of black cockatoo contrasts with the widespread white cockatoo. The occurrence of distinct but related species in different regions of a zoological province, preserved because of geographical barriers. Instances of interspecific hybrids and intraspecific sterility. Local varieties of species. Varieties are subdivisions of the main branches of the tree of organisms, dividing irregularly but remaining independent of the twigs from another branch.