Summary

Thanks for JL’s willingness to sell land.

Summary

Asks JL to send ten shillings for the Down Friendly Club.

Has just read JL’s paper on bees and wasps [J. Linn. Soc. Lond. (Zool.) 12 (1876): 110–39]. Is astonished by their stupidity. The experiments on colour are especially good. Suggests JL examine their retinas; sends enclosure [missing] on eyes of reptiles and birds.

Summary

JL’s two articles in Nature ["Common wild flowers", 10 (1874): 402–6, 422–6].

Cautions against C. K. Sprengel’s notion of bees’ being deceived by nectarless nectary.

Colour of calyces.

Summary

Encloses a statement and circular he has been asked to send to JL.

Summary

Circular requesting recipients to sign an enclosed [missing] statement [relating to appeal for Naples Zoological Station] if they approve of it.

Summary

CD wishes to acquire a piece of JL’s land.

Summary

Sends MS intended some day for the Viola tricolor section of Cross and self-fertilisation [pp. 123–8] to be used by JL in his British wild flowers (1875).

Summary

Writes concerning the land he wishes to purchase from Sir John Lubbock.

Summary

Has written to J. Murray to have account of the Zoological Station inserted in the Murray guidebook.

The circular about the Station has been printed; some have already signed.

Received R. Kossman’s paper on Anelasma ["Untersuchungen über die durch Parasitismus hervorgerufenen Umbildungen in der Familie der Pedunculata", Verh. Phys.-med. Ges. Würz. N. F. 5 (1874): 129–57]. The case is the most interesting ever recorded of gradation, i.e., from an animal with a stomach to one with roots like a plant.

Delighted he will examine the complemental males of Scalpellum.

Summary

CD’s son Francis is to be married, so CD is seeking advice as to how much he should arrange as a marriage-settlement.

Summary

Wants to see Huxley tomorrow, but knows he is going down to High Elms to see Colenso.

Summary

CD interested in JBI’s observations of behaviour of bees. Finds his criticism about hexagonal cells made by queen wasps a good one. Cannot remember how he got out of the difficulty.

His book on worms to be published soon.

E. A. Darwin has died after short illness.

Summary

It is splendid how Nepenthes is behaving. Drosera and Dionaea are insignificant by comparison.

Takes rather a malicious pleasure in JDH’s failure with Cephalotus as a match to his with Utricularia.

Summary

Thanks for Quarterly Review [Oct 1874, containing G. H. Darwin’s letter and a rejoinder]. Is convinced the author is Mivart. Is therefore not surprised at malice in the article attacking his son [George Darwin] and grossly misrepresenting CD.

Summary

Praises WDW’s essay on language [North Am. Rev. 119 (1874): 61–88] which argues against Max Müller’s views and is a good defence against an attack made in Quarterly Review on CD’s short discussion of language.

Summary

Thanks THH and Hooker for defending George Darwin against Mivart’s libel.

Summary

Asks JT to persuade Lady Lubbock to change physicians and put herself in the care of Andrew Clark. Thinks this alone will save her.

Summary

Returns historical sketch [of GHD’s "cousin paper"?] with comments. "For Heavens sake put a sentence in some conspicuous place that your results seem to indicate that consanguineous marriage, as far as insanity is concerned, cannot be injurious in any very high degree."

Summary

Is not inclined to restrain himself from expressing his opinion of Mivart. Huxley’s article in Academy.

Summary

The review of EBT’s book ["Primitive Man: Tylor and Lubbock"] in the Quarterly Review [137: 40–77] last year contained a false and malicious attack on CD’s son George. CD knows it was written by St George Mivart. CD wishes to take every opportunity to say how false a man he considers him to be.