Summary

His answer to Asa Gray.

On JDH’s view of aristocracy. Primogeniture is dreadfully opposed to selection.

Orchid book proofs ready soon – has no idea whether it is worth publishing.

Huxley on Owen.

Feeble letter from J. H. Balfour against Huxley’s lectures ["Relation of man to lower animals", pt 2 of Man’s place in nature (1863)].

Has received the "astounding" Angraecum sesquipedale with nectary 1ft long: "what insect could suck it?"

Summary

Wrote a "frightful screed" about aristocracy’s being a necessary consequence of natural selection, and then burnt it.

H. W. Bates is the only man "thinking out" natural selection to any purpose. "I think I have driven Bates back to Nat. Sel. as the only way of solving his difficulties."

HWB’s mimetic butterflies.

JDH wishes he had time to do the same thing with plants.

Owen and Huxley involved in a "contemptible" squabble in the Edinburgh newspapers.

Maximovitch reports Stellaria bulbifera is a Siberian form which never ripens its seeds.

Summary

Much amused at the Witness.

Pleased at what THH says on hybridity.

Odd that objectors never allude to the arguments that alone have weight in their favour – affinities, rudimentary organs, etc.

Has 16 ill in the house!

Natural History Review a capital number.

Summary

JDH castigates the Americans after the Trent affair. The value of an aristocracy. How will CD answer Asa Gray’s letter?

His "remarkable plant" [Welwitschia mirabilis] exhibited at Linnean Society.

Genera plantarum is in press.

Summary

Has had 16 in the household ill.

Wants to meet JL.

Praises JL’s paper ["Ancient lake-habitations of Switzerland", Nat. Hist. Rev. n.s. 2 (1862): 26–51].

Summary

The Witness attacks THH’s lecture.

Assures CD he spoke more favourably of his doctrines than the reports show.

Agrees with CD’s arguments on sterility of hybrids and predicts physiological experiments will produce physiological species sterile inter se. Has come even closer to CD’s view especially since Primula paper. Will soon be more Darwinian than CD.

Summary

Has received a satisfactory answer from Lord Tankerville.

Summary

Is JDH sure it is a Bletia, just received? Its pollen very different from any Epidendreæ he has seen. If it is Bletia, Lindley’s grand divisions are fanciful.

Accepts JDH’s offer to collect cases of dimorphism.

James Bateman has sent a lot of orchids with Angraecum sesquipedale. What a proboscis the moth that sucks its 11½ inch nectary must have!

Summary

Is preparing a volume of his articles [Essays on scientific and other subjects (1862)], to one of which he would like to add a postscript referring to CD’s Origin [pp. 100–1]. Sends proposed postscript for CD’s approval.

Summary

Will send an Arethusa; offers other specimens.

Dimorphism.

Falconer contradicts Sumatra and Ceylon elephant story.

Lyell as rabid as ever about America.

Summary

Discusses manuscript by H. W. Bates [Naturalist on the river Amazons (1863)].

Mentions CD’s forthcoming book [Orchids].

Summary

Grieved to hear of CD’s illness; begs him not to give moment’s thought to his MS until health has returned.

Plans to exhibit mimetic butterflies at Linnean Society.

Summary

Lord Tankerville has not responded to the request for the skulls which LR requires for his research. CD addressed Lord T through his friend Sir Henry Holland, who is prepared to try again, despite Lord T’s rudeness.

Summary

On success of THH’s Edinburgh lectures.

Agrees that THH is right that the hybrid question is a "hiatus" [in the argument for natural selection] but he overrates it. Crossed varieties frequently produce sterile offspring. On this question asks THH to read his Primula paper [Collected papers 2: 45–63]. CD suspects sterility will come to be viewed as a selected character.

Summary

Sends paper [on ancient Swiss lake-habitations, Nat. Hist. Rev. n.s. 2 (1862): 26–51] for CD’s opinion.

Summary

Returns HH’s essay.

Summary

Owen’s paper on the aye-aye [Rep. BAAS 32 (1862) pt 2: 114–16];

his attacks on CD and his theories.

Summary

Quiz arrived safely.

CD’s three sons are in bed with bad colds.

Summary

Encloses note from Murray, hoping it will be satisfactory. Murray is ready to see as much of MS as possible. Murray is considered honest but may be cautious, since HWB’s name is unknown to the public.

Summary

Against all predictions his Edinburgh lecture was well received [Evidence as to man’s place in nature (1863)].

Took his old line about problem of infertility of hybrids as a test of CD’s views.

Report [from a newspaper] not quite right about what he said, but they have not refuted his statement that some form of progressive development theory is certainly true, nor that man and the apes come from same stock. Owen has gone in for progressive development in second edition of the Palaeontology [1861].