Summary

Thinks JDH would be wise not to touch on Pangenesis; it has very few friends. Bentham is doubtful, Carus against, and Alphonse de Candolle likes it least in the book. CD still convinced it will be hereafter looked on as "best hypothesis of generation inheritance & development". If JDH means to cut up Pangenesis he has no word to say in opposition.

Summary

Thinks J. D. Hooker and Asa Gray will not be able to visit Down until after the 12th.

Summary

The wheat and oat specimen has been examined "in congress" by Oliver, Bentham, Asa Gray, and JDH. No organic connection of any kind.

Summary

Has written to A. J. Gower.

Sends more copies of Queries about expression.

Pall Mall Gazette article [see 6342] is monstrous to say religion did not attack science. Should scientific men ignore whole subject of religion?

Sends French journal with article on JDH and one (weak) by Agassiz on geographical distribution.

M. J. Berkeley has sent his address [Rep. BAAS 38 (1868): 83–7].

CD differs with JDH on Owen; could hardly bear to shake hands with him.

Wallaces, Blyth, Jenner Weirs are coming to stay on Sunday.

Summary

Sketches out subjects he intends to speak on at Norwich [BAAS meeting]: museums, CD’s work in botany, Pangenesis, early history of mankind.

Asks about CD’s "book on man" [Descent].

Summary

Wants seeds of Passiflora gracilis.

Summary

Reached Kew last evening.

Hooker is in Scotland for two or three days.

Summary

Comments on Wollaston’s troubles

and his book [Coleoptera Hesperidum (1867)].

Mohl’s claim to foreign membership in Royal Society very strong.

Has been in despair about Variation – not worth a fifth part of the labour it cost him.

Is reading F. A. W. Miquel’s Flora du Japon [Prolusio florae Japonicae (1866–7)]; wonders whether A. Murray could be correct in his view that an area of the sea prevented Asiatico-Japan flora colonising western N. America.

Comments on A. Murray’s book [Geographical distribution of mammals (1866)].

Summary

Both sexes of Crossoptilon auritum (eared pheasant) obtained the red cheeks the first year.

Coloration of the linnet.

Summary

Has met A. J. Gower, Consul at Nagasaki, Japan, who knows all about the Ainus. JDH has given away all the copies of CD’s Queries about expression.

Nettled by Pall Mall Gazette review of BAAS address [see 6342].

Owen is indeed an ass. Carlyle’s comment on Owen’s smile.

The Asa Grays at Kew.

Summary

Accepts invitation.

Summary

Thanks JJW for his great assistance.

Discusses sexual selection in birds.

Sends queries on secondary sexual characteristics of birds.

Has often marvelled at the different growth of the flowering and creeping branches of ivy.

Summary

The problem of dimorphic plants and their fertility.

Summary

Thanks JvH for J. Stack’s answers [to queries about expression]. Though few, they are the best and clearest he has received. Sends a corrected printed version of queries.

Belatedly thanks JvH for his splendid report on glaciers [missing].

CD lives "in constant state of overwork and fatigue".

Everyone astonished by Dinornis photos.

Summary

Sends a page to be sent on to Charles William Nunn.

Offers sympathy for the illness of THH’s son, Henry (Harry) Huxley.

Wishes he could have attended the British Association for the Advancement of Science meeting at Norwich.

Summary

On triumph of "Darwinianism".

Discussion of their differences on subject of protection.

Summary

Because of work on the first number of the new Royal Geographical Society magazine, a manual of geography, and other things, HWB finds he must decline CD’s invitation.

Summary

Asks JM to consider publishing a MS on John Wesley by CD’s niece, Frances Julia Wedgwood [John Wesley and the evangelical reaction of the eighteenth century (1870)].

Has received clean sheets for Italian translation [of Variation?].

Summary

F. Müller’s corrections warrant stating that the English translation has "additions and corrections by the author".

Is gratified to hear his index [to Variation] is considered a good one.

Ernst Haeckel’s book [Generelle Morphologie (1868)], though speculative, strikes him as "one of the most remarkable books of our time".

Summary

Looks forward to seeing JDH and hearing about address.

Feels better already.

Disappointed in house [they have taken at Freshwater].