Summary

Fossil flora of the Carboniferous. Variation of forms found in coal analogous to succession of forms in peat-bogs.

Summary

Identifies South African species of plants that are normally non-climbers in the wild but climb freely when grown from seed at Glasnevin. Thinks there is probably a gradation in the wild between climbing and non-climbing varieties related to the degree of exposure each particular plant faces.

Summary

Sends dandelion [enclosed] with peculiar form of achene; suggests this solitary "sport" must have arisen by sudden jump from normal type.

Summary

Writes, for CD, to thank him for his letter and offer to send Unsere Zeit, but will not trouble him to send it.

Sends photograph of CD.

Summary

Describes CD’s qualifications for Copley Medal.

Summary

Reception of Scott’s paper.

Difficulty of writing Boott’s obituary.

Critical of Edward Frankland’s glacial theory.

Falconer’s and Ramsay’s views on Himalayan lakes lack support of basic evidence.

Taxonomic distribution of climbing plants.

Huxley picks quarrels with minor figures and thus magnifies them.

Summary

Can understand EH’s feelings on death of his wife.

CD was impressed by manner in which species in South America are replaced by closely allied ones, by affinity of species inhabiting islands near S. America, and by relation of living Edentata and Rodentia to extinct species. When he read Malthus On population, the idea of natural selection flashed on him.

Agrees with EH’s remarks on Kölliker ["Darwin’sche Schöpfungstheorie", Z. Wiss. Zool. 14 (1864): 174–86].

Asks EH to thank Carl Gegenbaur [for Vergleichende Anatomie der Wirbelthiere (1864)].

Summary

Pleased with news of BAAS meeting

and Scott’s possible position as Thomas Anderson’s curator.

Suggests Wallace is due for a Royal Medal.

Agrees with JDH’s criticism of Lyell’s address [see 4614].

Bentham’s Linnean Society address treats continuity of life in a vague non-natural sense.

Rereading his old MS [Natural selection] CD is impressed with work he had already done.

Writing Variation much harder than Climbing plants.

Encloses request to JDH to propose, or suggest on his behalf, that the Ray Society publish a translation of C. F. von Gärtner’s Versuche und Beobachtungen über die Bastarderzeugung im Pflanzenreich (1849).

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

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

Recalls being introduced to CD when [undergraduate] at Cambridge.

Sends CD some of his pamphlets

and expresses support of Origin.

Has discovered there are "3 sexes" in the solitary Cynips as well as social insects.

Summary

Has been informed Miss E. Watts retiring from poultry department of the Field and would like to take the post if made available. Asks CD if he would provide a reference for him if necessary.

Has bred and reared a young turtle-dove.

On progress of his lawsuit.

Summary

Would like his fowl skulls back.

Breeding experiments seem to show mongrels are just as fertile as pure breeds.

Summary

Response to ARW’s papers on Papilionidae ["On the phenomena of variation and geographical distribution", Trans. Linn. Soc. Lond. 25 (1866): 1–71; abstract in Reader 3 (1864): 491–3],

and man ["The origin of human races", J. Anthropol. Soc. Lond. 2 (1864): clviii–clxxxvi].

The former is "really admirable" and will be influential.

The idea of the man paper is striking and new. Minor points of difference. Conjectures regarding racial differences; the possible correlation between complexion and constitution. His Query to Army surgeons to determine this point. Offers ARW his notes on man, which CD doubts he will be able to use.

On sexual selection in "our aristocracy"; primogeniture is a scheme for destroying natural selection.

[Letter incorrectly dated March by CD.]

Summary

Thanks for paper ["Über die Entwicklungstheorie Darwins", Amtl. Ber. Versamml. Dtsch. Naturforsch. Aerzte 38 (1863): 17–30]. Delighted EH confirms his views. Many in England afraid to express views openly.

Summary

The [Royal Society] President’s address is in the Reader [4 (1864): 708–9], but one or two sentences have been omitted.

Summary

Salmon and trout increase in size with river.

Wishes to show CD fish hatchery near Hampton Court.

Quoted CD’s book on self-destruction within species in a salmon arbitration case.

Summary

Asks JDH to verify an observation on Dicentra – what CD thought was a branch in the young plant now looks like a gigantic leaf in the old.

Concurs on Spencer’s clever emptiness.

Ramsay exaggerates role of ice. Sorry to hear that Tyndall grows dogmatic.

Admits difficulty of making case for Wallace’s Royal Medal at this time.

Will soon finish the first draft of Variation.

Summary

CD pleased with Huxley for defending him against Sabine. Also pleased with much of Sabine’s address. Is sure JDH wrote the botanical part.

Suggests James Hector observe which insects visit endemic New Zealand plants

and JDH examine distribution of white vs coloured corollas in New Zealand.

Summary

Discusses Agassiz’s misrepresentations of his views and J. D. Dana’s "wild notions".

The reception is friendlier from younger scientists in France, and many of the best men in Germany.