Summary

Abstracts literature on sensitive plants (Linnaeus, L. P. Cailletet, W. R. McNab).

The Mimosa at Down is M. pudica.

Dichogamy in Eucalyptus difficult to decide, but Thiselton-Dyer thinks there is some protandry.

[Letter is in W. T. Thiselton-Dyer’s hand.]

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Thanks for observations on worm-castings and for JLGK’s amusing letter.

Wants to know whether species of Eucalyptus are dichogamous. [The P.S. on Eucalyptus may be part of another letter to another correspondent.]

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Has been in bed for some days with ugly head symptoms. "We are a poor lot."

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Will reread and consider TG’s letter when his health improves.

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Diagnosis of CD’s illness; prescribed diet.

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Orders list of chemical salts. Ashamed to order from Hopkins and Williams because they charge him such an extremely low rate.

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Asks FD to bring any book that gives the affinities of the various earths, alkalis and metals.

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Orders salts of various metals; thinks chlorides (where soluble) would be better than nitrates.

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Proud of CD’s good opinion of him. He worked in a merchant’s office in Germany for many years. Emigrated to Australia as a gold-digger and took up natural history after he was 30.

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Thanks JC-B for volume of Asylum reports and paper on epilepsy. Seems clear from reports that physiology of brain will soon be largely understood.

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Requests chemicals for Drosera experiments. Lists 12 acids tried so far.

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Pleased JSBS has decided to work on Drosera; sends plants. Does not know whether thermo-electric pile could detect temperature change when leaves close.

CD’s experiment with very weak hydrochloric acid repeated with success: the plants digest albumen more quickly.

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Thanks TFC for his extremely interesting paper ["On the fertilisation of the New Zealand species of Pterostyles", Trans. & Proc. N. Z. Inst. 5 (1872): 352–7]. Has no doubt his explanation [of the fertilisation mechanism] is correct. The case is analogous to that of the Cypripedium though TFC’s case is much more curious.

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Comparative study of "ethnical scriptures" shows that natural selection has operated in the evolution of religion.

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Reports case of a man with an eyelid abnormality that apparently was acquired in infancy but was inherited by his children.

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Thanks for strange debate, which CD returns. Principle of evolution has first-rate supporters in [Edward Sylvester?] Morse and Theodore Nicholas Gill.

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Thanks CD for his praise of West Riding Asylum Medical Reports.

Hopes CD will come to Asylum if he attends BAAS meeting at Bradford.

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Thanks JDH and Thiselton-Dyer for useful information.

Is surprised Mimosa albida is not sensitive to water. Asks that they try again, or lend it to him.

Remembers a walk in Brazil in great bed of Mimosa.

After JDH left, CD was very bad, with much loss of memory and severe shocks continually passing through his brain.

Summary

Thanks JSBS for telegraphing his results, which seem very remarkable; feels he should now try Drosera.

Summary

Very pleased at JSBS’s discovery ["On the electrical phenomena which accompany the contractions of the leaf of Dionaea muscipula", Rep. BAAS 43 (1873): 133].

Asks for pure animal substances [proteins] for Drosera experiments. His other sources have been T. L. Brunton, Edward Frankland, W. A. Miller (now dead), and Hoffmann of Berlin [A. W. von Hofmann?].