Summary

Thanks for reviews of Insectivorous plants and of Climbing plants in Nation and American Journal Science [see 10329].

AG’s essay on seed dispersal ["Burs in the borage family", Am. Nat. 10 (1876): 1–4].

Preparing book on advantages of crossing [Cross and self-fertilisation].

Summary

Has confirmed CD’s observations on Drosera.

Asks whether CD agrees that it is "no longer a fact" that the bladders of Utricularia vulgaris enable the plant to become lighter for fecundation and heavier when that act is accomplished. Plans to undertake further observations, under very high-powered microscopes, of mechanism of digestion.

Summary

Reports on the tendency of the normally fruitless Convolvulus arvensis, to form fruit when roots are cut and plant is in danger of dying.

Summary

He is surveying the literature on the struggle for existence among pasture plants. Asks CD for the "many cases on record" of changed relations among plants under slightly changed conditions alluded to in the Origin. [See M. T. Masters, J. B. Lawes and J. M. Gilbert "Agricultural, botanical, and chemical results of experiments on the mixed herbage of permanent meadow, conducted for more than twenty years in succession on the same land (pt 2, The botanical results)", Philos. Trans. R. Soc. Lond. 173 (1883): 1181–413.]

Summary

Reports an observation on his child’s behaviour;

claims to have captured two moths of different species in the act of copulating with each other.

Summary

Thanks for KHvS’s book [La province de Smyrne (1873)].

Discusses possible meeting.

Summary

Promises to vote for Lankester.

Acknowledges faults of R. L. Tait’s paper.

Summary

Sends copy of Arabische Korallen [1876].

Comments on reception of his paper on "Gastrula" [see 10012].

Summary

Thanks FG for his report [on the statistical validity of CD’s experiments; see Cross and self-fertilisation, pp. 16–18]. Discusses FG’s comments, his own experiments, and the means by which the results may be analysed.

Summary

At last, Expression is beginning to sell again.

Cooke has not yet decided on number of Variation [2d ed.] to print.

Summary

CD has read all of WHD’s and J. J. Drysdale’s papers [on spontaneous generation, monads, and the origin of life] and finds them the best work on the subject.

The function of bladders in Utricularia is not to float the plant.

Summary

Asks CD to come up to vote for Lankester.

Severely critical of R. L. Tait’s paper on Nepenthes communicated to the Royal Society.

Summary

He has confuted Descent.

Enclosures announce his cures of potato blight, epilepsy, etc.

Summary

Thanks CD for comments on Arabische Korallen [1876].

Comments on Monoenia darwinii [?] as a primitive sponge.

Discusses criticisms of CD’s theory by K. E. von Baer ["Über Darwin’s Lehre", in Reden 2 (1876): 235–480].

Summary

Proposes an unorthodox theory of generation that explains sex determination and atavism.