Summary

Encloses letter [missing] which he believes will clear up the part he played in Edward Sabine’s Presidential Address. Does not wish CD to think that he did not support the Origin.

Summary

On proportion of sexes in litters of greyhounds.

Summary

Sends proofs of his fish paper.

Will observe modification of colour in fish.

Is studying the development of the axolotl.

Encloses notes in reply to CD’s queries on fishes.

Summary

Thanks for Variation.

Reports work on his travel book [The Malay Archipelago (1869)].

Summary

ARW’s explanation of protective value of conspicuous coloration is ingenious.

CD still holds to sexual selection with respect to beauty in male butterflies.

Sexual selection and the races of man.

Expression of emotions is another subject he plans to include in his essay [Descent].

Asks ARW to suggest an observer in Malay Archipelago to whom he might send queries [on expression].

Summary

Memorandum about £250 investment in Patent Siliceous Stone Company, owned by David Thomas Ansted and Frederick Ransome.

Summary

Discusses the contraction of hygroscopic bundles in seed-pods,

and a paper by Hugo von Mohl ["Über dimorphe Blüthen", Bot. Ztg. (1863): 309–15, 321–8] in which he discusses Oxalis and determines that Fumaria is a necessarily self-fertilising plant.

Summary

Thinks Royal Society’s failure to honour W. J. Hooker may be due to small number of botanists on Council.

Interest in H. J. Carter’s papers in Annals and Magazine of Natural History on lower organisms.

On Wallace; anthropology.

H. H. Travers’ paper on Chatham Islands [J. Proc. Linn. Soc. Lond. 9 (1865): 135–44].

W. C. Wells’s paper of 1813 ["Essay on dew", Two Essays (1818)] anticipates discovery of natural selection.

Summary

Thanks for information on Tecoma.

Cannot believe DO’s statement about Catasetum; is sure C. tridentatum sets seeds in its native country.

CD erred on Acropera, but how is it naturally fertilised?

Summary

Observations on orchid self-sterility.

Wants information on characters that may have originated through sexual selection in lower animals.

Encloses queries on expression.

Summary

Lyell has received compliments for letting readers draw own inferences [on species question]. Now feels he earlier did Lamarck injustice. [CD’s] substitution of variety-making power for volition [as in Lamarck] in some respects only a change of names.

Thinks Huxley taking on too many responsibilities.

Summary

Last letter was written to be passed on for Lushington’s edification. "(Standing on the points of my toes and my tail very stiff)." Is tiring of controversy as a waste of time. Begins to understand CD’s sufferings over Origin.

Summary

On the Duke of Argyll and a review of his Reign of law.

Asa Gray’s theological view of variation. God’s role in formation of organisms; JDH’s view of Providence.

Insular and continental genera.

Owen on continuity and ideal types

and on bones of Mauritius deer.

On man.

Summary

The date-palm seed case is important for Pangenesis.

Reports experiments on pollination of Ipomoea.

"Insular floras": A. Murray’s paper in Gardeners’ Chronicle is poor.

John Scott’s work on acclimatisation of plants.

The anomaly of the Azores flora on the migration theory.

Summary

Thanks for subscription.

Reports experiments with wheat.

Sends notes on producing varieties by pruning.

Summary

Sends a diet for CD’s flatulence.

Summary

Appreciates CD’s acknowledging his letter and his comments on Acropera. Will send CD the Acropera capsule which is now maturing.

Experimenting on vegetable parthenogenesis.

Structure of Acropera.

Summary

Thanks EWL for his book about hydropathy [Old medicine and new (1873)].

Summary

Thanks GM for offer of observations. Would be interested to know when the horns of merino rams first appear,

and has long wished for living specimens of Drosophyllum.