Summary

Has obtained microscopes for CD.

Summary

Offers notes on Romulea rollii with sketch of a dissection.

Summary

Thanks for Lectures on the elements of comparative anatomy [1864].

If Owen wrote article on "Oken" [Encyclopaedia Britannica, 8th ed.] and French work on archetype he never did a baser act [see ML 1: 246 n.].

Bad health lately.

Summary

Rejoices that CD is beginning "the book of books", Variation.

Suggests that changes in colour of pollen, stigma, and corolla, as Scott reports in his Primula paper, may be related to changes in the insects required for pollination.

Supports Gärtner translation by Ray Society.

Comments on recent addresses by Lyell [Rep. BAAS 34 (1864): lx–lxxv], Bentham [Proc. Linn. Soc. Lond. 8 (1864): ix–xxiii], and Murchison [Rep. BAAS 34 (1864): 130–6].

Summary

Discusses the negative testimonial provided him by James McNab.

Sends testimonial from J. H. Balfour.

Would be glad if offered the sort of colonial opportunity Hooker suggests.

Summary

Asks CD to sign certificate nominating Flower for Royal Society.

Summary

CD’s Lythrum paper has given him as much satisfaction as working out complemental males in cirripedes.

Response to award of Copley Medal.

Letters from Germany and France support natural selection.

Now that climbing plants are done, CD asks for Drosera.

Summary

Explains several monstrous flowers sent by CD.

Summary

Acknowledges cancelled bond and thanks CD for declining to accept interest. Suggests 4 Mar 1865 as date for payment of the bill CD holds.

Summary

Argues the antiquity of the human species because natural selection acts differently with respect to men. Changes in man are largely confined to head and brain. Warfare and sex are very uncertain as means of selection.

Gives CD complete credit for theory of natural selection.

Is beginning his narrative of his travels.

Lyell argues against tracing man as far back as Miocene times. R. I. Murchison’s argument that Africa is the oldest existing land implies that Africa is the place to look for early man.

Summary

JDH explains why he cannot take Scott on at Kew.

John Tyndall cannot answer CD’s questions on glaciers. Edward Frankland’s ignorance. In JDH’s opinion, heaviness of winter snowfall is the greatest element in size of glaciers and this is a function of low mean temperature. Discusses descent of glaciers.

Summary

Again refuses to help Scott as "unfitted" to make his way in the world. Scott is unwilling to take his part in the "struggle for life", unlike Tyndall, Faraday, Huxley, and Lindley, who established themselves. Scott’s work is not science, but "scientific horticulture".

Summary

Reports on personalities at the Bath meeting of BAAS [Sept 1864].

Summary

Congratulates CD on the Copley Medal.

Is making inquiries on the habits of American cuckoos and sends a letter from Henry Bryant on that subject.

Discusses the Civil War.

Encloses letter from W. H. Leggett containing observations on Amphicarpaea.

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

John Scott’s career.

Huxley’s vicious attack on anthropologists.

Critique of Joseph Prestwich’s theory of rivers.

Bitter feelings between the Hookers and the Veitch family of nurserymen.

Summary

Has heard about but not read Origin; is concerned that it may contribute to unbelief. Gives many pages of scriptural quotations and exegesis on the creation of earth, species, etc.

Summary

Sends his MS of orchid paper ["A few notes on the fecundation of orchids and their morphology", J. Linn. Soc. Lond. (Bot.) 8 (1865): 127–35] for CD to send to an editor.

CD was right about Catasetum sexes.

Ficus experiments fail.