Summary

The cat exhibition might provide information on unusual breeds of cats and their inheritance.

Expresses interest in deafness of white, blue-eyed cats.

Summary

CD’s comments on proofs of JL’s book [Monograph of the Collembola and Thysanura (1873)].

Summary

A. J. Gaudry is one of few supporters of Darwinism in Paris.

The climate is so hostile that Kovalevsky must mitigate his views so as not to irritate the French.

Working on Anchitherium, which he believes is intermediate between Palaeotherium and the horse.

His brother-in-law has been arrested.

Summary

Thanks AA for a ‘splendid case of gradation of structure’.

Summary

In response to a query [from "F. W. B."], CD describes his experience with seeding Leschenaultia, which demonstrates that insect agency is required.

Summary

Reports on the international support he has obtained for the zoological station [see 7038]. Asks CD whether he will serve on a board of naturalists who would receive an annual report on the station.

Huxley is now convinced by AD’s views on homologies of the nervous system of arthropods, annelids, and vertebrates. Kovalevsky takes the same line but does not go far enough.

Summary

Discusses exchange of books.

Summary

Prefers W. C. Wells’s explanation of the formation of the Nehro type to CD’s sexual selection.

Outlines his view of the origin of man by natural selection.

Summary

Surprised at Mivart’s harsh review [Q. Rev. 131 (1871): 47–90], considering courteous tone of his book. Assures CD he has not been converted by Mivart.

Summary

Thanks for a book. "I am so much overworked at present that I cannot read it now, & I am a very poor German scholar".

Summary

On Huxley’s article for Contemporary Review [see 7977] confuting Mivart. It has cheered him,

for he is very low about his mother’s state.

Is also in detestable position with "my lord and master", A. S. Ayrton. JDH has denounced him to the [First] Lord of the Treasury [W. E. Gladstone] for his conduct.

Summary

Hooker admires THH’s review of Mivart [see 7977]. Most impressed by THH’s handling of metaphysics.

Hooker’s problems: family health and A. S. Ayrton [Commissioner of Works].

Summary

Publisher would like to produce a translation of Expression. JVC offers to translate it.

Sends passage from Albertus Magnus on colour of horses.

Offers explanation of white colour of sea-birds.

Schweizerbart is now reprinting Descent, nearly all the first 3000 copies having been sold;

new editions of Origin

and of Variation are also planned.

Possibility of a new German translation of Journal of researches.

Summary

Glad to hear of new German edition of Origin. He is revising the English edition, adding a new chapter of "Answers".

No new edition of Descent has appeared.

Would be glad to see a new translation of the Journal of researches, which he revised in 1845.

Comments on white colour of sea-birds.

Summary

Is preparing a work on fertilisation of flowers, and wants to add a list of works containing observations on cross-fertilisation of plants. Asks CD for any references he may have.

Summary

Answers CD on transitional forms. Has no doubt Zeuglodon is transitional form between Carnivora and Cetacea.

Met Mivart in Manchester. Some doubt that he was the author of Quarterly Review article.

Summary

"Like you I have often wondered at the different food of the old and young, as with graminivorous birds feeding their young with insects."

Recommends forthcoming book by John Lubbock [Monograph of the Collembola and Thysanura (1873)].

Summary

Fox hopes to see CD in London in November.

Summary

JF’s indebtedness to Herbert Spencer. [Published version complete.]

Summary

Sends details of his discoveries of relics and bones of the "mound-builders", and Jeffries Wyman’s comments on them.