Summary

JDH reports on Frank’s reading of his Dipsacus paper at the Royal Society. Huxley slept through much of it, but JDH is well pleased with it.

Summary

Has read in the newspapers about the album of photographs of German scientists sent in tribute to CD. His name and photograph are missing only because he was not asked to participate. CC assures CD he is one of his ardent supporters.

Summary

Thanks for Orchids [2d ed.].

Does not feel his abstract of Cross and self-fertilisation [Am. J. Sci. 3d ser. 13 (1877): 125–41] was thorough enough.

Has heard of their sad bereavement last autumn [death of Amy, wife of Francis Darwin].

Summary

Asks CD to publish in Nature JGFR’s observation that natives of Hainan have movable tail bones up to 4 cm long.

Summary

As editor of the new journal, Kosmos, thanks CD for the permission he has granted Ernst Haeckel to publish with CD’s approval.

Cites his long support for evolution as exemplified by his book [Die botanische Systematik in ihrem Verhältniss zur Morphologie (1866)].

CD has many German supporters.

Summary

Discusses the cleistogamous flowers of Oxalis. Thinks they may not be truly cleistogamous but merely arrested or imperfectly developed normal flowers.

Summary

Sends belated birthday greetings

and an archaeological pamphlet.

Asks for CD’s autograph.

Summary

Fertilisation of orchids. Believes some plants so constituted as to dispense with cross-fertilisation.

Summary

Thinks flowers of Hottonia project from the stem nearly horizontally, perhaps slightly upwards.

Sorry that he cannot help with Pulmonaria angustifolia.

Summary

Oliver cannot, as CD has requested, hunt for trimorphic flowers in the Herbarium’s collection of Oxalis specimens. He would help Frank if he comes.

Summary

Regrets he cannot help on Oxalis question. He did not note the names of species with cleistogamic flowers as he thought they were sufficiently known.

Summary

Pangenesis supports the existence of gemmules; does not accept Galton’s experiments as disproving their existence or importance.

Summary

The editor of the Agricultural Gazette asks CD to settle a point being debated in his journal. Can a desirable breed of cattle, which is so inbred as to have scrofula, be maintained by crossing with a breed of healthy constitution?

Summary

A curious error – too late to change: in Cross and self-fertilisation CD has "cleistogenous" for "cleistogamous" flowers throughout.

Summary

Thanks CD for new [2d] edition of Orchids.

Mentions some observations on dimorphic plants.

Reports on a third species of Pontederia [see Forms of flowers, p. 185].

Describes some unusual grasses.

Reports rumours from southern Brazil concerning the existence of a gigantic subterranean animal.

Summary

Proposes to construct an aquarium on Jersey and wants to use CD’s name in support of the project.

Summary

Lithospermum longiflorum has cleistogamous flowers and, unlike other species of genus, it is not dimorphic.

Summary

Staying with W. D. Fox on the Isle of Wight. Offers to find Pulmonaria plants.

Summary

Congratulates CD on testimonials from the savants of Germany and the Netherlands [Nature 15 (1877): 356, 410–12] and generally on his contributions to biology.

Asks if and when CD’s "Variability of organic beings in a state of nature", as projected in 1868 [see Variation 1: 4] is to appear.

Summary

Sends cheques in payment of CD’s share of profits on Cross and self-fertilisation, now nearly exhausted,

and the latest printing of Origin.