Summary

Enumerates fossil mammals known in Secondary strata.

Lack of angiosperm plants in rocks older than Chalk is no reason to anticipate rarity of warm-blooded quadrupeds.

Summary

Has come to think his brains were not made for thinking – he immediately feels better when at Moor Park.

News of his family.

Summary

Encloses an abstract of his ideas on natural selection and the principle of divergence; the "means by which nature makes her species".

Discusses varieties and close species in large and small genera, finding some data from AG in conflict with his expectations.

Has been observing the action of bees in fertilising kidney beans and Lobelia.

Summary

Thanks JBEB for Papaver seeds. Has long wished to see some of the closely allied subspecies and hopes to make some crossing experiments with them.

Summary

Mustering support at Royal Society Council for John Lindley’s Copley Medal. CD thinks Albany Hancock deserves a Royal Medal.

Summary

Comments on TCE’s work [Catalogue of the species of birds in his collection (1856)].

Mentions African dog’s skin.

Asks about colours of horses

and about variation in tracheae of male birds.

Summary

MTM did not write Gardeners’ Chronicle review of Variation [(1868): 184].

Encloses letters supporting a project [Botanical Congress?] to promote horticulture, and hopes CD will reconsider giving his support.

Summary

Praises JDH’s Australian introduction.

Disputes JDH’s emphasis on SE. and SW. Australian flora.

Summary

Discusses the ranges of alpine species in U. S. and considers the possible migration routes of such species from Europe.

Lists those U. S. genera which he considers protean and describes the U. S. character of some genera which are protean in Europe.

Describes how he distinguishes introduced and aboriginal stocks of the same species.

Summary

Both JDH’s and Bates’s letters are excellent. JDH has said all that can be said against direct effect of conditions, but CD still sticks to his own and Bates’s side. CD should have done what JDH suggests (since naturally he is pleased to attribute little to conditions) – viz., started on the fundamental principle that variation is innate and stated that afterwards, perhaps, this principle would be made explicable. Variation will show that "use and disuse" have some effect. Does not believe in perfect reversion. Demurs at JDH’s "centrifugal variation"; the doctrine of the good of diversification amply accounts for variation being centrifugal.

The wonderful mechanism of Mormodes ignea.

Summary

R. I. Murchison’s address [see 4595] smashes Ramsay’s glacial theory.

JDH defends his view that CD should not answer Kölliker.

Summary

The house at Barmouth.

His poor health.

Bentham’s interesting Linnean Society Address ["On geographical biology", Proc. Linn. Soc. Lond. (1869): lxv–c].

CD particularly wishes to know how botanists agreed with zoologists on distribution.

Still thinks isolation more important in preserving old forms than Bentham is inclined to believe.

Summary

CD continues to have trouble reconciling the Veitch’s names for Bignonia plants and Kew names.

Lyell and Falconer called on CD in London.

Summary

Has filled up CD’s paper [see 1674].

Distribution and relationships of alpine flora in U. S.

Summary

Has been observing Drosera. Asks JSH whether a curious motion in the red fluid poured out from the viscid hairs is a known or common phenomenon. It surprised him, but he is "so ignorant of vegetable physiology".

Summary

Discusses a proposed expedition to Australia. Urges collecting and investigating productions of isolated islands. Recommends dredging the sea-bottom.

Mentions keeping Helix pomatia alive in sea-water.

Summary

Was glad to read JDH’s article on glaciers of Yorkshire ["Moraines of the Tees Valley", Reader 6 (1865): 70].

Reader article [6 (1865): 61–2] about English and foreign men of science is unjust.

Lubbock is now lost to science.

B. Verlot’s pamphlet on variations of flowers [Sur la production et la fixation des variétés dans les plantes d’ornement (1865)] is very good.

Summary

Thanks GHKT for letter on plant acclimatisation and variation among alpine and lowland forms in Ceylon.

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

JDH criticises C. J. F. Bunbury’s paper on Madeira [J. Linn. Soc. Lond. (Bot.) 1 (1857): 1–35].

Absence of Ophrys on Madeira suggests to JDH a sequence in creation of groups.

Why are flightless insects common in desert?

Australian endemism.