Summary

Thanks SN for his explanation of vines.

Discusses SN’s observation on roots secreting carbonic acid.

Summary

Informs CD of Chauncey Wright’s death.

Summary

On fertilisation in certain orchids.

Summary

Writing article for a German newspaper on CD’s life. Requests autobiographical information.

Summary

Thinks CD’s case of twins with crooked fingers may be one from his twin study.

Summary

Agrees to write to William Ogle [about twins with crooked fingers].

Describes growth of sweetpeas for experiment.

Summary

Asks whether the twins WO reported to CD [see 5470] were named Macrae. F. Galton has told him of a similar case with twins so named who inherited crooked little fingers from the maternal side [see Variation, 2d ed., 2: 240]. [The twins referred to by WO were actually his sisters, see 10170.]

Summary

Reports the death of Chauncey Wright: "a great blow … to the interests of sound thought and scientific inquiry throughout the country".

Summary

Asks whether CD has observed that bees limit their visits to a single kind of flower on each journey from the hive, as Aristotle has said they do. What advantage would such a limitation be to the insects?

Summary

Encloses a photograph and [?].

Summary

Will propose GJR for membership in Linnean Society.

Discusses GJR’s grafting experiments.

Summary

Sends a lecture CD wished to see

and corrects himself about the twins.

Summary

Thinks JGFR should send report of coloured spots on infants’ buttocks to some ethnological society.

Summary

Thanks FG for issues of Revue [Scientifique vol. 7, containing lectures by Claude Bernard].

Ogle says twins [with crooked fingers] are his sisters.

Recommends book by M. A. Puvis [De la dégénération des variétés de végétaux (1837)].

Summary

From Galton’s "twin study" he suspects that some progenitor of WO’s had the peculiarities in question.

Has collected cases of signs of assent for a revised edition of Expression.

Suggests bees visit same species because they know how far to insert proboscis and thus save time.

Summary

Sends CD the 2d part of his travels into the Tien-shan mountains [Erforschung des Thian-Schan Gebirgs-Systems (1875)].

Has written a paper on the ranges and systematics of wild sheep and on modifications probably resulting from competition with domestic sheep, which he wishes to translate into English and would like to see appended to Variation.

Discusses sexual selection in thrushes; it apparently modifies one species into another.

Summary

Reports on Schrankia aculeata in which pinna and pinnule are sensitive, but, unlike Mimosa pudica, rachis does not move.

Summary

Comments on Insectivorous plants.

Describes his own work on fossil flora of Eastern Siberia.

Discusses genus Ginkgo.

Summary

Sends specimens of grafted potatoes. Describes grafting experiments designed to prove possibility of graft-hybrids, and thus, Pangenesis.

Summary

CD obliged about the Schrankia

and thanks WTT-D for details of last number of Gardeners’ Chronicle.