Summary

Does not think he can persuade American publishers to reprint [4th English ed. of] Origin in U. S. Suggests Murray supply copies of it and the new book [Variation] to the American market.

Summary

Hildebrand’s paper on trimorphism in Oxalis ["Über den Trimorphismus in der Gattung Oxalis", Monatsber. K. Preuss. Akad. Wiss. Berlin (1866): 352–74].

Problems of explaining brightly coloured, attractive seeds.

Haeckel has visited Down.

FM’s climbing plants paper is printed [J. Proc. Linn. Soc. Lond. (Bot.) 9 (1867): 344–9].

Summary

CD elected honorary member of the Royal Irish Academy.

Summary

Sends a box of orchids.

Summary

Asks for the name of a hummingbird.

Summary

L. Agassiz’s evidence [for glaciation of America] is very weak.

Thanks AG for arranging for American edition of Variation, but doubts that the book will be successful.

Has found no differences in pollen of Rhamnus so cannot conjecture whether it is dimorphic.

The common oxlip of England is certainly a hybrid between the primrose and the cowslip whereas Primula elatior is a good species.

Reports experiments on the relative vigour of seedlings from cross- and self-fertilised plants.

Summary

Asks botanical readers to inform him "whether in those monoecious or dioecious plants, in which the flowers are widely different, it has ever been observed that half the flower, or only a segment of it, has been of one sex and the other half or segment of the opposite sex, in the same manner as so frequently occurs with insects?"

Summary

WBT interested in ancestors of domestic guinea-fowl, ducks, and geese.

Egg colours in fowls.

Summary

The apparent difference in arm lengths of compositors is due to a drooping shoulder. File-makers stand in a peculiar position and call one of their legs the hind leg.

Summary

Sends his book [Histoire naturelle des annelés marins et d’eau douce, 2 vols. (1865)].

Summary

Asks for reference to EB’s article about tame deer on island in Aral Sea.

Summary

Has been offered proof impressions of Maguire’s portrait of CD.

Sorry to hear of CD’s "heap of maladies".

Georgina [Tollet?] wants to see the review in the Quarterly Journal of Science [3 (1866): 151–76].

Summary

Thanks for observations on dimorphic plants. Dimorphism prevalent in certain groups throughout the world.

Retarded fertilisation in certain orchids.

Summary

A confounded cock ground the crimson seeds up so CD could not find them in its excrement. CD is puzzled by how seeds can be disseminated if merely ground up by birds. Perhaps like acorns from seeds accidentally dropped by birds?

A woodcock’s leg with dry clay clinging to it, from which CD has grown a microscopical rush.

Spencer would have been wonderful if he had trained himself to observe more.

On New Zealand flora and connection with Australia.

Difficulty of speculating about the amount of organic chemical change at different periods.

Summary

Has made will. Discusses financial arrangements and asks whether CD would like a mortgage.

Summary

Sends a diet for CD’s flatulence.

Summary

Gives CD genus and species names of the singular humming-bird; distressed by specific name made necessary by revised laws of nomenclature.

Summary

Thanks CD for his kind expressions [of sympathy] and for his consideration. Encloses cheque for £5 interest.

Summary

Mogg [John Traherne Moggridge] wants to visit CD.

Self-fertilising orchids.

Summary

Orders Richard Owen’s Anatomy of vertebrates [1866–8],

subscribes to Annals and Magazine of Natural History,

and orders three back numbers of Medical Times and Gazette.