Summary

Agassiz’s superficiality and wretched reasoning powers. But he stirred up Europe on glaciers. Lyell has been working on their effects – testing work of others.

CD believes "Natural Systems" ought to be simply genealogical. "Time will come when we shall have true genealogical trees of each great kingdom of nature."

Summary

Lists groups of insects absent from the Madeiran fauna.

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Reports progress of work on the new rooms [at Down].

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JSH’s Myosotis is beginning to sport. Asks whether some features are not odd.

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Reports that he fertilised a single pale red carnation with the pollen of a crimson Spanish pink, and a Spanish pink with the pollen of the same carnation. He got seed from both crosses and raised many seedlings. There was no difference between the seedlings from reciprocal crosses, not one plant set a single seed.

Summary

CD anxious to examine rumpless chick 24 hours before hatching.

Summary

Thanks GB for his help on naturalised plants; comments on spreading of plants.

Wants to quote GB on the names of species and varieties of Silene on which C. F. von Gärtner experimented.

Thinks GB will be disappointed in his book [Natural selection]. "It will be grievously too hypothetical."

Summary

THH’s catalogue [THH and R. Etheridge, A catalogue of the collection of fossils in the Museum of Practical Geology (1865), part published in 1857] best résumé he has seen of science of natural history. On classification he is not quite sure that he wholly goes along with THH. Encloses a few criticisms of THH’s preface.[enclosure survives as copy only].

Summary

For his studies on fertility of crosses, asks GB to mark a list of pairs of Cucubalus as to whether they are varieties of the same species, or distinct species.

Summary

The [Irish] rabbits arrived safely. "They shall be skeletonized." CD now has rabbits from Shetland, Madeira and Ireland; hopes to receive one from Jamaica.

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Asks PHG to conduct an experiment to see if young littoral molluscs will cling to a duck’s foot – CD seeks to explain distribution of molluscs without adopting E. Forbes’s [continental extension] theory.

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Asks whether British or north European perennial plants can, under cultivation, withstand the climate of S. Australia.

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Will shortly return CD’s list of varieties of British plants. Discusses the situations in which different varieties of species are often found and the ranges of varieties relative to those of the species.

Summary

Thinks naturalists look for something further than Cuvier’s view of classification. Poses a theoretical problem on the classification of the races of man to prove that a genealogical system is best.

Summary

CD has saved an enormous amount of labour since he replaced the chain on his deep well with wire rope. He now asks readers whether they have had experience of saving on the weight of the bucket by using some material other than oak.

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Accepts a dozen eggs of rumpless Polands. Having so many enables him to see whether the breed "comes true".

Asks what colour turbits have dark tails – "it is just the class of facts which interest me".

Do fowls when crossed throw odd and unexpected colours like pigeons?

Summary

Separation of sexes in trees [U. S.].

Do plants offer positive evidence for "continuous land" theory?

Protean genera.

Summary

Writes of the extension to Down House.

Summary

Tabulation of varieties goes on; very important as it shows the branching of forms. Mentions his principle of divergence.

Summary

Requests a quart of distilled water for photography to be sent in a clean bottle via the postman on the following day.