Summary

Is drawing up the account of his crossing experiments. Requests JDH to add the families after nine genera, the names of which he encloses. Whenever there is no objection he would like to arrange the families in some sort of natural order.

Recommends Spalding’s article on instinct in Macmillan’s Magazine [27 (1873): 265–81].

Summary

Sends copy of Vinzenz Czerny [Beziehungen der Chirurgie (1872)], which applies Darwinian principles to pathology.

Recommends illustrations dealing with expression in the Atlas of K. H. Baumgärtner’s Kranken-Physiognomik [1839].

Summary

Thanks for information on worm-castings. Comments on disintegration of castings.

Summary

CD would like to know what were the sizes of insects caught by the older leaves of Dionaea.

Summary

The editor of a supplement to the New Free Press to be published during the next Vienna Exhibition, asks CD to contribute a few columns on any topic.

Summary

Reports that he has the power of moving his left ear towards the top of his head [see Descent 1: 21].

Summary

Thanks for gift of first part of AG’s magnificent work [Animaux fossiles du mont Léberon (1873)].

Summary

Thanks for a photograph of a donkey and children.

Summary

Orders a copy of the St Paul’s Magazine for February.

Summary

Delighted with John Traherne Moggridge’s book [Harvesting ants (1873)].

Has suggested he plant seeds in various receptacles. Only two explanations for failure of seeds to germinate [in ants’ nests]: lack of circulating air or formic acid.

Has undertaken a botany primer for Macmillan.

Summary

Recommends a language teacher.

Remarks on expression.

Summary

Will see whether formic acid delays germination of fresh seeds.

Thinks primer not at all a folly. Refers JDH to Asa Gray’s "child’s book" [see 8363].

Summary

Comments on CD’s and William Huggins’ letter in Nature on "Inherited instinct" [Collected papers 2: 170–1]

and on A. R. Wallace’s letter on the homing faculty of animals. Believes many instances of homing are less remarkable than they appear.

Summary

CD is asked to increase his shares in the Artizans, Labourers, & General Dwellings Co. Ltd., which has trebled its capital in the last year and is paying a 6% dividend.

Summary

Sends pamphlet on punishment in education [Punishments in education, read at Social Science Congress, 1872] in response to Expression. Proposes that character can be diagnosed from expression.

Summary

Thanks CD for comments on Die Kalkschwämme.

Plans trip to Greece, Asia Minor, and Egypt.

Discusses work of a Polish translator, Ludwik Masłowski.

Summary

Asks for references to works on CD’s views for a paper he is preparing.

Summary

Thanks CD for Expression.

Suggests saving some anthropoid Quadrumana from extinction by taming and studying them in their own environments to learn about their development.

Summary

Sends "squib" he has written exposing the folly of some of Louis Agassiz’s ideas. AG cannot "fire off [his] cracker" in U. S. so sends it to amuse CD. If it is sent to Nature, CD must not give AG’s name. [See "Survival of the fittest", Nature 7 (1873): 404].

Summary

Additional errata in Descent.