Summary

Thanks AR for specimens and notes. Will keep them for future edition [of Variation]. Particularly struck by difference in hardiness of varieties of Syringa persica.

Summary

Encloses a letter [from J. Croll?].

Has been unable to find a paper CD wanted.

Is leaving shortly for Paris.

Summary

EF is seeking a French editor for Orchids [1870]. Introduces L. Rérolle, his student. [See 6667.]

Summary

CD long anxious for new American edition of Origin to incorporate corrections since 2d ed. [of 1860]; believes such updating has kept English and continental sales high. If Appleton unable to comply, he will ask Asa Gray to find another publisher.

Mentions possible arrangements for U. S. edition of new book [Descent].

Summary

Not willing to sit for photographer again.

ABM’s translation of Wallace’s Malay Archipelago has not yet arrived.

Summary

The house at Barmouth.

His poor health.

Bentham’s interesting Linnean Society Address ["On geographical biology", Proc. Linn. Soc. Lond. (1869): lxv–c].

CD particularly wishes to know how botanists agreed with zoologists on distribution.

Still thinks isolation more important in preserving old forms than Bentham is inclined to believe.

Summary

Thanks for MS observations on expression. Discusses hair standing on end in terror and rage. Asks JC-B to observe contraction of platysma myoides. "Your description of the grinning and exposure of the canine teeth under furious rage is excellent. I presume that you would not object to my quoting it." Asks about contraction of "grief muscles". Comments on blushing. Offers to send book by G. B. A. Duchenne [Mécanisme de la physionomie humaine (1862)].

Summary

Will come to Down on 25 Sept.

Thanks CD for supplementaries ["Fertilization of orchids", Collected papers 2: 138–56] which he will quote in the British flora [The student’s flora of the British Islands (1870)].

F. A. W. Miquel could not come.

Summary

Assumes Murray will give permission for French translation of Orchids; asks that stereotypes of woodcuts be supplied at cost, since if expensive the work will not appear.

Summary

Thanks JVC for his information (from two correspondents) on the rate of growth of merino rams’ horns.

CD has been revising Origin [5th ed.]. Has found a good deal to alter.

Summary

Pleased to undertake publication of a new French translation of Origin based on the 5th English edition. J. J. Moulinié to be translator, with Carl Vogt reviewing his work. Will make arrangements to buy out the Royer edition [V. Masson et Fils; Guillaumin et Cie.].

Summary

Envies JDH’s Russian trip.

Thanks for information on Aucuba. Urges him to experiment – case "has highest physiological importance, not to mention Pangenesis".

Has heard that Huxley has been attacking views of Sir W. Thomson.

Has received 12 plants of Drosophyllum lusitanicum from Oporto.

Summary

More on the problem of the increase of elephants (see 6806f and 6820).

Summary

Thanks GM for specimens of Drosophyllum; by a strange coincidence CD has also received plants from a correspondent in Oporto [W. C. Tait].

Summary

Not well owing to fall from horse.

[Drosophyllum] plants going on very well.

Summary

Thanks for information about bird migration.

Comments on canary hybridisation.

Summary

THF’s view, if confirmed, pleases CD in that what appears a mere morphological character is found to be of use. Carl Nägeli has been attacking him on this head.

Summary

CD’s questions [on expression] are more difficult than he thought and have led him further afield than he expected. If CD is not hurried, he promises less imperfect answers in six weeks. Thanks CD for drawing his attention to a really important question from different points of view.

Summary

Thanks JM for Quarterly Review. A. R. Wallace’s article inimitably good – and a triumph that it appears where it will make B[ishop] of O[xford] and Owen gnash their teeth.

Delighted at the sale of F. Müller’s book.

Thinks he has brought Origin up to "present standard of science" [5th ed. (June 1869)].

Slow progress on Descent.

His horse rolled over him, but he is recovering rapidly.

Summary

Replies to CD’s questions. Advice on use of term "morphology". Is much struck by CD’s idea that uniformity of an organ throughout a group implies functional inutility; the paradox of this position for classification.