Summary

European men choose partners for different reasons. Savages select more for bodily attraction than facial beauty.

Summary

Encloses "notes for Mr. D" [see 1818] and a memorandum on the wild cattle of southern India [see 1819].

Breeds of silky fowl of China and Malaya. Black-skinned fowl.

Doubts any breed of canary has siskin blood; all remain true to their type.

Wild canary and finch hybrids.

Hybrids between one- and two-humped camels.

Does not regard zebra markings on asses as an indication of interbreeding but as one of the many instances of markings in the young which more or less disappear in the adult.

Crossing of Coracias species at the edges of their ranges.

Regional variations and intergrading between species of pigeons.

Regards the differences in Treron as specific [see Natural selection, p. 115 n. 1].

Gives other instances of representative species or races differing only in certain details of colouring.

Summary

Has heard CD is much interested in questions relating to varieties and species. Mentions a case of a seminal variety of Colletia spinosa, described by John Lindley, which appears identical with another wild species of Colletia from S. America. Hopes CD will one day "enlighten us very much" on "the laws of species". There are many different views on the limits of species; M. F. Dunal made 50 species of Solanum which George Bentham considers are all varieties of S. nigrum.

Summary

Has reduced 20 Cyrena species to geographical varieties of one species, Cyrena fluminalis. Hooker is reducing Indian flora at the rate of 19 to 1.

Recommends W. H. Harvey’s Seaside book [1849] and Charles Pickering’s Races of man [1850].

Summary

Opposition to EB within the Asiatic Society.

Possibility of establishment of a zoological garden at Calcutta.

Has seen Gallus varius alive for the first time.

Will procure domestic pigeons for CD; could CD pay for them by returning hardy creatures, such as macaws and marmosets, which EB can sell for a high price in India?

Does not recall his authority for genealogy of the asses of Oman. If a genuine wild ass exists EB believes it will be in south Arabia.

Infertility of Irish and Devon red deer.

Details of an unusual species of wild dog.

Fertility of canine hybrids. General tendency toward hybrid sterility.

Has skins of hybrid Coracias and the parent species.

Wide-ranging species; skua found in Europe and Australia, but not in the tropics.

Summary

There is a possibility of establishment of a Government Museum at Calcutta, with which the Asiatic Society Museum would be merged. EB would like the curatorship but fears other possible applicants. Asks CD to represent him to W. H. Sykes.

Discusses the ancients’ awareness of various cats as deduced from the etymology of their names.

Summary

Gives references to works on fowls and pigeons.

Observations on Gallinaceae.

Musk ox skull from southern England is additional evidence for Agassiz’s glacial period. Owen is mistaken in calling it a buffalo.

EB describes the buffalo proper.

Will send domestic pigeon specimens.

Believes pigeons were not bred in India before the Mohammedan conquest. Describes Indian breeds.

Believes the ass is an African rather than an Asian production. Discusses various species of ass and their distribution.

Wild horned cattle on borders of Pilibhit and Shahjahanpur.

[Notes received by CD on 6 May 1856.]

Summary

Comments on JL’s paper on Daphnia, ["An account of methods of reproduction in Daphnia and of the structure of the ephippium", Philos. Trans. R. Soc. Lond. 147 (1857): 79–100].

Summary

Non-endemic Ascension Island plants brought by man, not wind-transported.

Bentham has found intermediates between oxlip and cowslip in Herefordshire.

JDH finds quantity of albumen in seeds is not variable within a species.

Summary

Thanks for proof sheets of Lake Ngami: or, exploration and discoveries during four years’ wanderings in the wilds of South Western Africa (Andersson 1856).

Is very grateful for the information CJA has provided about cattle in South Africa, and wishes to ask further questions about native breeds.

Summary

Extensive notes on Madeiran birds: when and where seen on the island and under what conditions.

Summary

Asks HAO about breeds of Tibetan dogs and other domesticated animals.

Summary

Informs CD that in his experience with peas he has never found the seed to deteriorate.

Summary

Queries from CD on the distribution of molluscan genera referring to SPW’s Manual of the Mollusca [pt 3 (1856)], with SPW’s answers.

Summary

Thanks SC for his interesting account of the state of the colony. SC was wise to settle there where his sons have much better prospects.

Has finished his book on barnacles [1854]. Royal Medal awarded him chiefly for this work.

Asks SC whether he has observed any odd imported breeds of poultry, for his work on variation of species.

Summary

Speculates about cause of inclination in unusual columns of lava. Suggests CL check with William Hopkins about sliding movements in viscid matter.

Comments on CL’s expedition to Madeira.

Summary

Discusses means of seed transport.

Considers the difficulty of deciding which, if any, botanical species are real.

Summary

CD forgets an author [CD himself in Coral reefs] "who, by means of atolls, contrived to submerge archipelagoes (or continents?), the mountains of which must originally have differed from each other in height 8,000 (or 10,000?) feet".

CL begins to think that all continents and oceans are chiefly post-Eocene, but he admits that it is questionable how far one is at liberty to call up continents "to convey a Helix from the United States to Europe in Miocene or Pliocene periods".

Will CD explain why the land and marine shells of Porto Santo and Madeira differ while the plants so nearly agree?

Summary

Thanks WDF for his help and reports on progress in "the Cock and Hen line of business". Has written to every quarter of the world for skins of poultry and pigeons.

As for seeds, Hooker and Bentham obstinately refuse to believe they can live even a few years in the ground.

Summary

Thanks JDD for replies to queries [in 1925]; would like to know whether teeth of cave rat are of New or Old World type.

Wishes Louis Agassiz would publish his theory of parallels of geological and embryological development. "I wish to believe but have not seen nearly enough as yet to make me a disciple."

Is working hard on variations and origin of species, but fears it will be a couple of years before he publishes.

Describes his recent work on rabbits and pigeons.

The dispersal of land Mollusca is a most difficult problem.

Confesses he is sceptical of immutability of species; discusses difficulty of proving it.