Summary

Has heard nothing about the Copley Medal. Is grateful for Hugh Falconer’s interest [see 4546].

Supplies details about circumstances of his voyage on the Beagle.

Does not believe that his sea-sickness was the cause of his subsequent ill-health.

Encloses the requested list of publications [see 4550].

Summary

Family matters; CD’s feelings on death of FW’s son [James Mackintosh Wedgwood, 1834–64].

Summary

Has seen that ARW has read a paper to the Linnean Society.

Thinks that Herbert Spencer’s Social Statics (Spencer 1851) would be too deep for him.

Summary

Cannot get any Stellaria graminea for CD. It is rare. Some, producing different kinds of flowers, once grew in Sandgate, Kent. Variations in flowers need to be re-examined.

Summary

Describes CD’s qualifications for Copley Medal.

Summary

Cannot find his Chalk or Gault formation Pollicipes. Inquires how CD sent these back.

Summary

Requests permission, for a friend, to publish extracts of Orchids in German translation.

Summary

Explains that Orchids has been translated into German (Bronn trans. 1862); and that Living Cirripedia can now be purchased at Hardwicke’s, 192 Piccadilly, London.

Summary

CD’s views go hand-in-hand with those of Ludwig Büchner.

He requests an autograph for a friend.

Summary

Will be glad to do diagram for CD;

asks whether he has read a Hugo von Mohl paper [see 4349].

Summary

CD’s Lythrum paper has given him as much satisfaction as working out complemental males in cirripedes.

Response to award of Copley Medal.

Letters from Germany and France support natural selection.

Now that climbing plants are done, CD asks for Drosera.

Summary

On the Borneo cave exploration.

ARW will send his contribution to theory of origin of man. The vast mental and cranial differences between man and apes, whereas structural differences in other parts of body are small. The problem of explaining diversity of human races along with the stability of man’s form during all historical epochs. Discussion with "Anthropologicals" [following reading of ARW’s paper, "The origin of human races", before the Anthropological Society, 1 Mar 1864].

Summary

CD very ill.

Suspects F. Boott’s widow is illegitimate granddaughter of Erasmus Darwin.

CD, like JDH, has speculated that agrarian weeds have become adapted to cultivated ground. Suggests comparison with country of origin.

Wallace’s praise of Herbert Spencer’s Social statics baffles CD.

[Letter completed by E. A. Darwin.]

Summary

JDH’s opinion of Herbert Spencer.

Rejects CD’s view of inheritance of induced modifications.

Huxley grows fat.

Summary

Remarks on ARW’s review of Samuel Haughton’s paper on bees’ cells

and Origin.

Agassiz’s strength as geologist and weakness in natural history theory.

Work problems.

His butterfly collection.

Problems with book on Malay journey.

Recommends Herbert Spencer and his Social statics.

Spencer’s "masterly" nebular hypothesis.

Summary

Sends his MS of orchid paper ["A few notes on the fecundation of orchids and their morphology", J. Linn. Soc. Lond. (Bot.) 8 (1865): 127–35] for CD to send to an editor.

CD was right about Catasetum sexes.

Ficus experiments fail.

Summary

Informs CD of two distinct forms of Plantago lanceolata.

Summary

Urges Emma to bring CD to hydropathic establishment at Forres.

Summary

Requests photograph.

Summary

Collecting subscriptions for a school at Ford.