Summary

Baillière wishes to bring out a French translation of Coral reefs; CD requests their co-operation.

Summary

CD doubts that he will be able to do much more that is new, but cannot bear idleness. Has great amount of material on variation under nature, but so much has been published since the appearance of the Origin that he doubts he has the power of mind to render the mass into a digested whole.

Summary

Encloses statement of sales for Origin, Expression, Descent and Insectivorous plants and sends a cheque for the balance due to CD.

Summary

A curious error – too late to change: in Cross and self-fertilisation CD has "cleistogenous" for "cleistogamous" flowers throughout.

Summary

Has heard CD is about to be proposed again for the Académie Française, but Huxley is proposed at the same time and may succeed against CD "as being more orthodox!"

Summary

Thanks CD for helping his successful candidacy for F.R.S.

He is working up Arctic insects. Bombus is found at 83° N., as far north as has been reached.

Summary

Thanks for ESM’s address ["What American zoologists have done for evolution", Proc. Am. Assoc. Adv. Sci. 25 (1876)].

J. A. Allen’s work is important as apparently showing change through direct action of [external] conditions.

CD has given up trying to understand E. D. Cope and Alpheus Hyatt on acceleration and retardation.

Summary

Discusses the structure of the human cranium, in particular a find by Cocchi and observations by Canestrini.

Summary

Requests observations on sensitive Mimosa and movements of plants in rain.

Worm-castings.

Summary

Thanks him for book by Grant Allen [Physiological aesthetics (1877)].

Comments on dispute over spontaneous generation.

The Council [of the Royal Society] will not print Frank Darwin’s paper on Dipsacus [in Philos. Trans. R. Soc. Lond.].

Mentions GJR’s grafting experiments

and his investigation of spiritualism.

Summary

Urgently requests a pair of braces. "Please remember that I am 6. ft high & require rather long bracers."

Summary

CD would prefer not to be a witness in court. In any case CD’s opinion is strongly opposed to that of CB and Annie Besant. Has read only notices of their book [Charles Knowlton, Fruits of philosophy, with preface by the publishers A. Besant and C. Bradlaugh (1877)] but believes artificial checks to the natural rate of human increase are very undesirable and that the use of artificial means to prevent conception would soon destroy chastity and, ultimately, the family.

Summary

Discusses effects of natural selection. Discusses absence of blending between geographical races as a problem. Discusses effect of natural selection on productivity of an organism.

Comments on GJR’s review of Grant Allen’s book [Physiological aesthetics (1877)].

Summary

Concerning the publication of a French edition of Coral Reefs.

Summary

Criticises Herbert Spencer’s Principles of sociology, particularly for its treatment of the family, for its superficiality, and for its dependence on J. F. McLennan’s views on exogamy. Americans are coming to see Spencer’s ideas as too broad.

Summary

Thanks for CD’s £5 contribution towards Jules Michelet’s tomb.

Summary

Wants CD’s advice on who would undertake describing the Crustacea from the Challenger expedition [1872–6].

Summary

On painful state of CD’s reception in France.

Summary

Thanks CD for permission to print ["Sketch of an infant"] in Kosmos.

Discusses children’s ability to distinguish colours.

Describes disagreements among German supporters of CD. Discusses reaction of German protestants to Darwinism.

Summary

Has sent Mimosa. The horticultural and physiological Mimosa is M. albida, which has a western distribution, rather than M. sensitiva as it is commonly called in error.