Summary

Asks JSH to identify an umbellifer.

Describes his efforts to compare number of seeds of wild and cultivated plants.

Asks that more wild celery be collected and seeds counted. Seeks to verify whether "most typical form produces most seed" and whether cultivation lessens fertility.

Summary

On his father’s crossing experiments with cacti, in which hybrids were found quite fertile.

On his breeding of guinea-pigs.

Sends Miss E. Watts’s message about crested fowls and Brahmas.

Summary

Congratulations on birth of THH’s daughter [Jessie].

On aboriginal dun colour of horses.

Examples of inaccuracies and perpetuation of errors [on hybrids] by "compilers, of which I am one".

Summary

Much interested in MTM’s lecture at Royal Institution ["On the relation between the abnormal and normal formations in plants", Notes Proc. R. Inst. G. B. 3 (1860): 223–7].

Asks for information about crossing of varieties of peas. Describes his own experimental results: "the offspring out of the same pod, instead of being intermediate, was very nearly like the two pure parents; yet in one, there was a trace of the cross & the next generation showed still more plainly their mongrel origins".

Summary

Is collecting facts for Variation; would be grateful for skins of local [Cape of Good Hope] breeds of pigeons, ducks, and poultry.

Summary

Answers D. Beaton’s criticism of Gärtner’s work, defending his results in crossing experiments and vindicating the memory of "one of the most laborious lovers of truth who ever lived".

Summary

News of progress of German editions of Origin

and Descent.

Asks CD for references on chabius – a Chilean hybrid of goat and sheep.

Summary

Congratulates CD on testimonials from the savants of Germany and the Netherlands [Nature 15 (1877): 356, 410–12] and generally on his contributions to biology.

Asks if and when CD’s "Variability of organic beings in a state of nature", as projected in 1868 [see Variation 1: 4] is to appear.