Summary

Sends TCE West African dog’s skin.

Summary

Sends news of his family, Sulivan, and FitzRoy.

Summary

Thinking about HF’s paper on Plagiaulax [Q. J. Geol. Soc. Lond. 13 (1857): 261–82]. Owen might answer that all Purbeck mammals are marsupials.

Summary

Congratulations [on Mrs H’s delivery].

Balanus balanoides positively identified by CD.

Summary

Has some fowls from Sir James Brooke, which WBT might like to display at Zoological Society.

Summary

Discusses difficulties involved in deciding which genera are protean in the light of some comments by H. C. Watson.

Summary

Suggests CD use the common origin of the French "chef" and the English "head" or "évêque" and "bishop" to illustrate the parallels between extinction and transitional forms in language and palaeontology [see Natural selection, p. 384].

Summary

Would rather not serve on Royal Society committee [for a North American exploring expedition]. Suggests subjects for geological investigation.

Summary

CD is sending two pairs of Persian fowl, from Hon. C. Murray.

Thanks WBT for various offers: a drake, a young silk fowl, a rumpless chick.

The German pouters are not old-fashioned ones but fancy birds, probably crosses since they do not breed true.

Summary

Recommends he read passages on bees by C. T. E. von Siebold [in On the true parthenogenesis in moths and bees (1857)].

Summary

Is glad WBT is investigating "the tail question"; hopes he will work out "down & colour point". Is much interested in runts, which seem to vary more than other breeds.

Summary

Has TCE observed whether hybrids of Chinese and common forms [of geese] were wilder, or less tame, than both parents?

Summary

Seedling leaves of gorse look like clover leaves. This is like young lions being striped. Thus, laws of animal embryology apply to plants.

Summary

The variations of Peronea caused A. H. Haworth and J. F. Stephens to create 30 or 40 species based on colour and markings. HD was first to be convinced these would be reduced to two.

Discusses species that closely resemble one another;

cites species that differ in variation in different localities;

in some double-brooded species the broods differ markedly in size and colour.

Encloses his list of varieties of Peronea.

Summary

Sends specimens of Tortrix, which illustrate the extraordinary variation of markings in two or three species. In every family of Lepidoptera there seem to be species extremely prone to vary and in some localities they vary more than in others.

Summary

Can HF ask Col. E. Dickie [probably Col. Edward John Dickey] enclosed questions about Indian horses? [Questions relate to striped markings on the Kutch breed of horses.]

Summary

Needs only one nearly-hatched chick.

Has all published numbers of Poultry book [1856–7].

Summary

Recommendations of books of general interest [for the Royal Society library]. These include [Louis] Agassiz’s works, [William] McGillivray’s [History of] British birds, and David Low’s [On the domesticated animals of the British Islands].

Comments on current candidates for the Royal Society.

Summary

CD anxious to examine rumpless chick 24 hours before hatching.

Summary

Mrs J. S. Henslow’s illness.