Summary

He has promised Mark [coachman to R. W. Darwin and Susan] that CD will continue the payment of £20 a year after EAD’s death; the house is rent free.

Summary

CD is invited to see ARW’s collections at Bayswater.

ARW has written an answer to the Duke of Argyll and North British Review criticisms.

Summary

Asks FD to check whether a Latin sentence is correct.

Summary

Thanks CD for his two notes [on indexing references to authors]; will increase the scope of his citations by including those quoted in footnotes in support of statements in the text.

Summary

Never imagined that the facts about sexual selection could be new to CD. Thought fact that brightly coloured females build concealed nests and almost all those in which sexes differ remarkably build exposed nests might be new to him. Some problems remain. Sends his notes for CD to use if he wants.

Summary

Is sending a copy of [John] Shaw’s book, which Lady Bell says is based on Charles Bell’s papers [possibly C. Bell, A treatise on diseases of the urethra, 3d ed. with notes by John Shaw (1822)].

Summary

Wynne [gardener] suggests he should be paid from the money from the sale of the Mount, but EAD suggests an annual subscription instead.

Summary

Sends cheque for Down charities.

Summary

Response to CD’s comments on "Creation by law" [see 5637].

The limits of variation discussed.

Summary

Describes his view on colour [of plumage] of males and females – i.e., that absence of brilliant colour in either sex is due to need for protection in incubation, rather than to sexual selection.

Summary

Discusses proposed sale of house and provision for Wynne, the gardener, and his wife.

Summary

Will introduce Charles Kingsley to CD.

Summary

He is vexed that CD has had to write again about the index. He has no excuse except "the nature of the work itself".

Summary

Informs CD of his reply to Argyll and the North British Review criticisms [in "Creation by law", Q. J. Sci. 4 (1867): 471–88]. Cites "the predicted Madagascar moth" and Angraecum sesquipedale.

Birth of Herbert Spencer Wallace.

Summary

CD must decline his correspondent’s kind offer [unspecified], but he is out of health and has passed the part about dogs in a work now at the printer’s [Variation].

Summary

CD has come to think a name better than "Pangenesis" is needed. Asks GHD to get a suggestion from a classics scholar. "Cell-genesis wd be perfect if it cd be put into Greek."

Summary

JL’s brother-in-law [Robert Birkbeck] would like a note of introduction to John Murray.

Summary

ARW responds to CD’s list of queries about expression. Suggests acquiring informants through publishing the queries in newspapers. His doubts about their importance.

Has submitted caterpillar question to Entomological Society.

Summary

Pleased that CD approves his idea about caterpillars.

Thinks CD is right about selection in butterflies, but still believes protective adaptation has kept down colours of females.

Cannot yet see action of natural selection in forming the races of man.

Summary

Protective role of colours in caterpillars and butterflies. Sexual differences in colours of butterflies.