Summary

Thanks CD for his Primula paper [Collected papers 2: 45–63].

Asks if CD has observed the true oxlip (Primula elatior).

Comments on Hottonia and Stellaria graminea. [See Forms of flowers, pp. 72, 313.]

Summary

Discusses Stellaria and other plants said to be dimorphic.

Asks for plants he wants for experiments.

Preparing a little book on Orchids.

Summary

Sends 3d ed. of catalogue of rocks [A descriptive catalogue of the rock specimens in the Museum of Practical Geology (1862)].

T. F. Jamieson’s paper on the parallel roads of Glen Roy to be read 20 January. Asks whether CD will be a referee.

Summary

Has sent CD the published part of his work on Carex [Illustrations of the genus Carex (1858–67)]. Hopes to add 200 more figures. Comments on great variability among the 600–odd species, and on their geographical distribution.

Summary

Asa Gray has a self-fertilising Platanthera, like the bee orchid. CD believes problem of the latter will some day be explained. Speculates [Ophrys] arachnites may be crossing form and bee orchid self-fertilising form of the same species.

Cytisus adami is a puzzle.

Pleased if DO will review Orchids [Nat. Hist. Rev. n.s. 2 (1862): 371–6] .

His review of Primula paper was capital. [Nat. Hist. Rev. n.s. 2 (1862): 235–43].

Requests peloric plants.

Summary

Has had news from Asa Gray about Civil War.

Belatedly thanks CD for Orchids, which shows CD to be the successor to Gilbert White.

Summary

Asks for authentic information on following questions: 1. Has the weight of the gooseberry variety London subsequently exceeded the 1845 record of 880 grains?

2. Is any record kept of the diameter of the largest pansies?

3. How early does any variety of Dahlia flower and do some varieties withstand frost better than others?

Summary

Will enclose list of orchids in bloom for CD’s use.

Asks for photograph; her pleasure in knowing CD.

Most interested in the account of pigeons in CD’s book [Origin].

Summary

Discusses dimorphic plants and the occurrence of "precocious fertilisation" in the bud.

Gives some comments on design in nature in the light of the translator’s commentary in the French edition of the Origin.

Reports the recent events of the Civil War.

[Note on verso of envelope:] Utricularia vulgaris is "about as neatly contrived for cross-fertilisation by insects as almost any orchid".

Summary

Thanks for Haast’s observations. Particularly glad to get geological evidence of glacial action (in Southern Hemisphere).

Thinks Ramsay’s theory to large extent true, but thinks that in a much disturbed country some lakes would have been formed in depressions.

Summary

JDH admits he wrote Gardeners’ Chronicle and Natural History Review articles on orchids [Gard. Chron. (1862): 789–90, 863, 910; Nat. Hist. Rev. n.s. 2 (1862): 371–6].

JDH’s objections to CD’s idea of how Greenland was repopulated. Temperate Greenland has as Arctic a flora as Arctic Greenland – a fact of astounding force. Why should certain Scandinavian species be absent? Migration by sea-currents can no more account for the present distribution in Greenland than can special creation.

Summary

L. C. Treviranus inclined to translate Orchids, but "unfortunately" HGB has already done it. Book’s discussion of plant sexuality important for zoology as well as botany.

Origin is in press. Attaches a list of "quelques petites difficultées" encountered in his translation.

Summary

Lighthearted thoughts on "the development of an Aristocracy" after a visit to Walcot Hall, Shropshire.

On CD’s point about the effect of changed conditions on the reproductive organs, JDH does not see why this is not "itself a variation, not necessarily induced by domestication, but accompanying some variety artificially selected".

Summary

Extreme interest in MS of HF’s paper on the American fossil elephant [Nat. Hist. Rev. n.s. 3 (1863): 43–114].

Pleased HF does not believe in immutable species. Significance of proboscidean group verging towards extinction. Comments on natural selection preserving type despite variability. Natural selection solves problem of how every part of each creature has become adapted.

Summary

Further comments on Jamieson’s theory of the formation of the roads of Glen Roy; paper by Jamieson dealing with glaciation in Scotland ["On the ice-worn rocks of Scotland", Q. J. Geol. Soc. Lond. 18 (1862): 164–84].

Comments on paper by A. C. Ramsay on the glacial formation of lakes ["On the glacial origin of certain lakes", Q. J. Geol. Soc. Lond. 18 (1862): 185–204].

Criticises remarks by John Tyndall on glacial formation of Swiss valleys.

Summary

Sends CD West Ireland soundings.

More detail on his review "a la Lindley" [see 3797].

Bates’s paper ["Contributions to an insect fauna of the Amazon valley", Trans. Linn. Soc. Lond. 23 (1862): 495–566] is capital.

Andrew Murray’s article plays into CD’s hands through sheer ignorance.

JDH is on Royal Society Council.

Has no recollection of applying natural selection to Polynesians. None but a German would dig out such a passage if it exists [see 3812].

Has caused Tyndall to modify his pseudo-geology.

Has not seen Duke of Argyll’s review [Edinburgh Rev. 116 (1862): 378–97]. [The Duke] did not understand Orchids the least little bit, nor the Origin, when JDH saw him.

Summary

A German scholar says JDH first applied natural selection to replacement of races of men, the ruder races of Polynesians yielding to civilised Europeans. CD cannot remember reading this.

Warns JDH to take care Welwitschia does not turn into a case of barnacles and consume years instead of months.

In what months do flowers appear in Acropera loddigesia and A. luteola? CD is alarmed by John Scott’s observations on them, which differ from his own. "I am very uneasy."

Summary

Asks his opinion of A. C. Ramsay’s glacial lake theory. Encloses Julius Haast’s communication on glacial phenomena.