Summary

Apologises for saying more than was necessary in his previous letter. Although he feels gratitude and esteem for CD, he execrates those who use natural selection to oppose man’s higher interests and impede his advance. Has seen Huxley’s Man’s place in nature for sale among a crowd of obscenities at most Italian railway stations.

Summary

Thanks PLS for his generous offer to go over the part on birds [in Descent]. Does not think PLS realises that there are more than 200 pages – most of which will have nothing new for him.

W. H. Hudson’s proofs have arrived ["Letters on the ornithology of Buenos Ayres", Proc. Zool. Soc. Lond. (1870): 87–9, 158–60, 332–4, 545–50, 671–3, 748–50, 798–82; (1871): 4–7, 258–62, 326–9].

Summary

Congratulates BJS on his K.C.B.

In autumn he will publish a book partly on man [Descent], which he expects "many will decry as very wicked".

Thinks the success of the Tierra del Fuego mission is wonderful.

Summary

Has CD read E. Claparède ["Remarques à propos de l’ouvrage de M. Alfred Russel Wallace sur la théorie de la sélection naturelle", Arch. Sci. Phys. & Nat. n.s. 38 (1870): 160–89]? Is it worth translating?

CD and J.-F. de Brandt are "en lutte for Ac. of Sc. [France]. What a farce it is".

His work on Nepenthes supports Miquel’s and Wallace’s view of the zoology of Borneo and Sumatra.

Brian Hodgson on dogs.

H. C. Bastian’s book [The modes of origin of lowest organisms (1871)] unsatisfactory.

Lyell does not share CD’s view of Bentham’s address.

Summary

Better news about the rabbits.

Summary

Accepts PLS’s offer to read proofs of [Descent].

W. H. Hudson’s paper is interesting.

Summary

Comments on WP’s biographical article on CD. Asks him to thank O. F. Peschel for his present of the publication [Das Ausland 2 Apr 1870].

Summary

Concern about futures of Willy [Hooker] and Horace [Darwin].

Henrietta [Darwin] back from Cannes.

CD has been to Cambridge to visit Frank [Darwin]. Saw Sedgwick, who took him to the [Geological] Museum and utterly exhausted him. Humiliating to be "killed by a man of 86".

Saw Alfred Newton.

CD has been working away on man, to much greater length (as usual) than expected,

and on cross- and self-fertilisation.

Does JDH happen to have seeds of Canna warszewiczii matured in some hot country?

Sympathises with JDH on Dawson’s paper – amusing that Dawson hashes up E. D. Cope’s and L. Agassiz’s views.

Summary

Sends his "Charles Darwin, eine biographische Skizze" [Das Ausland 2 Apr 1870].

Summary

Thanks CD for his letter referring to JWS’s bibliographical paper ["Darwinian bibliography", Z. Ethnol. 3 (1871): 56–67]. Will be glad to inform CD of any additions to the list and would be grateful for information on future publications.

Summary

Has forwarded JPMW’s papers to the Linnean Society [four articles by J. P. M. Weale, J. Linn. Soc. Lond. (Bot.) 13 (1870–2): 42–58].

Comments on JPMW’s findings concerning flowers and their fertilisation.

Summary

COG-N sends, at the request of the late Lord Brougham, a copy of his work, The book of nature and the book of man [1870].

Summary

Praise for ARW’s reply [Nature 3 (1870): 49–50] to a paper by A. W. Bennett ["Natural selection from a mathematical point of view", Nature 3 (1870): 30–3] holding that mind is a leading cause of variation.

Is reading proof of his "confounded book" [Descent].

Summary

Cannot find the [indelicate] passage he referred to in last letter.

Various publication arrangements.

Summary

Thanks for the information sent by WGS in his letter of 4 November 1870.

Summary

Crossing experiments and self-sterility [in Eschscholzia].

Pangenesis.

Hermann Müller on insect adaptations for fertilisation of flowers.

CD working on book on man and sexual selection.

Summary

Argus pheasant.

Summary

Does not give much for botanical results of Round Island, but the zoology is wonderful.

Lyell’s new book [The student’s elements of geology (1870)]. Urges Lyell to make it Elementary principles.

Grove is disgusted with CD for being disquieted by William Thomson: "Take another dose of Huxley’s penultimate address to Geol. Soc." [Q. J. Geol. Soc. Lond. 25 (1869): 28–53].