Summary

The Secretary to the First Commissioner of Her Majesty’s Works thanks CD for providing the funds for a new edition of Steudel’s Nomenclator [Index Kewensis].

Summary

Sends a translation of Aristotle’s De partibus animalium and imagines that if the old teleologist were alive CD would convince him of his errors.

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Thanks WO for gift of his translation [Aristotle’s De partibus animalium]. Suspects the introduction would interest him more than the text "notwithstanding that he [Aristotle] was such a wonderful old fellow".

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Responds to CD’s query about the sensitivity of plants in light and darkness and Julius Wiesner’s assumptions [in Das Bewegungsvermögen der Pflanzen (1881)].

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Trying to get some Darwinians into the Institut de France.

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Politics at Kew led to a letter of thanks to CD from the First Commissioner for his gift.

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Thanks for Earthworms.

Sends preferred address.

Summary

Prefers to make the present of microscope at once [to Grant Allen].

Summary

CD sends cheque for £250 [see 13620].

Summary

Has just read CD’s book on worms and is finding tower-like worm-casts, as CD described, in Alpes-Maritimes. Relates case of garden worms and moles.

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Suggests that the tendency of the left arm to move with the right leg (and vice versa) during walking is a rudiment of quadrupedal locomotion and thus bears on the descent of man.

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Asks GHD to send a copy of his "paper on the moon" [probably Philos. Trans. R. Soc. Lond. 171 (1880): 713–891] to V. O. Kovalevsky.

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Asking the lord mayor of London to call a public meeting concerning the persecution of the Jews in Russia.

Summary

Thanks JM for copy of Quarterly Review, with article on his worm book [Henry Wace, "Darwin on earthworms", Q. Rev. 153 (1882): 179–202].

Writer will change his mind on evolution. CD cannot think of any young worker in biology who is not convinced of the truth of evolution, though many believe that natural selection has not done much.

Summary

Returns CD’s letter concerning testimonial fund for Grant Allen.

Summary

JS is proposing to write a detailed history of the polled Aberdeen breed of cattle [James Macdonald and James Sinclair, History of polled Aberdeen or Angus cattle (1882)] and would be grateful for any instances of hornless breeds known to CD; in particular asks his opinion on the cause of the peculiarity.

Summary

Sends a letter [missing] from a Mr Moorhouse on lapwing behaviour that makes earthworms rise to surface.

Summary

Writes of his work and a paper accepted for publication in the Philosophical Transactions [? "Stresses caused in the interior of the earth", Philos. Trans. R. Soc. Lond. 173 (1883): 187–230].

Gives news of friends.

Summary

Accepts election as a corresponding member of the American Social Science Association [see 13615].

Summary

Discusses present of microscope to Grant Allen.

Mentions sugar-cane paper [by Baron de Villa Franca].