Summary

Glad to hear about colours of Hylobates.

Cannot find any statement about which digits in man are most subject to syndactylism in Isidore Geoffroy [Saint-Hilaire]’s Histoire des anomalies [1832–7].

Asks questions concerned with seasonal and sexual changes in plumage of various bird species.

Does male woodpecker share in incubation?

Summary

MTM did not write Gardeners’ Chronicle review of Variation [(1868): 184].

Encloses letters supporting a project [Botanical Congress?] to promote horticulture, and hopes CD will reconsider giving his support.

Summary

George Rolleston’s son was born with a scar on his knee exactly where GR cut himself with a knife years before his marriage. Gives several other examples of inherited mutilation.

Summary

Discusses the human foot and its abnormalities; notes an example of syndactylism.

Gives his observations on sexual differences in coloration of terns and ostriches.

Summary

More on the "terrible problem" of natural selection and sterility. CD’s reasons for disagreeing with ARW. CD analyses and answers ARW in detail in defence of his conclusion that sterility cannot be increased through natural selection.

Summary

Sends Salmon Fisheries Report. Asks for CD’s opinion on his "close season" chapter.

Summary

Gives details of some points that occurred to him while reading Variation, including observations on horses, cattle, silkworms, and hereditary baldness and disease.

Summary

Has asked gentlemen who administer chloroform to make observations [on expression?] for CD.

Summary

Goes to N. Wales with Huxley.

Wishes to borrow Duke of Argyll’s Reign of law.

The BAAS Presidential Address [Rep. BAAS 38 (1868): lviii–lxxv] – his unhappiness about it; history of botany requires too much reading.

Smith will supply notes on Euryale.

Summary

Describes the action of facial muscles at the onset of crying as observed by Langstaff.

Summary

On dentition of moles. On double teeth [see Variation 2: 391].

Difference in size of male and female Crustacea.

Summary

Thanks for sending Variation.

Summary

Thanks Charles Langstaff for his observations relating to expression. Has requested observations on the platysma. Discusses the actions of other facial muscles, especially during crying. [Encloses 5828.]

Summary

If CD is not convinced by his notes on sterility, ARW has little doubt that he is wrong. In fact he was only half-convinced by his own arguments.

Modifies his first proposition [a species varies occasionally in two directions, but owing to free inter-crossing the variations never increase] and further discusses the subject.

Encloses Berthold Seemann’s notes on flora of the Hawaiian Islands. Presence of European alpine species in Hawaiian volcanoes is a "hard nut" for geographical distribution [but see ARW’s Island life (1880), p. 323].

Summary

Difference between sexes of Ibis rubra; change in plumage.

Summary

Reports on Prof. Cornalia’s observations on the proportion of sexes in bees, and in healthy and sick silk moths, in nature and under domestication.

Summary

He never intended "A Lift for Darwin" as a serious title but as a way of arranging it. Lyell’s suggestion seems best to him: "Facts and Arguments For Darwin".

Summary

Notes the differences in seed production between cross- and self-fertilized flowers of Victoria regia.

Summary

Warns ARW of dubious character of list of European alpine genera and species in volcanoes of Hawaii. Problems of geographical distribution in oceanic islands.

Summary

Corrects errors of detail in Variation.