Summary

Thanks for JL’s willingness to sell land.

Summary

The land CD wants to buy probably belongs to his marriage-settlement and would thus be difficult to sell.

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

Is willing to sell the land CD wants for £300.

Summary

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

Summary

Explains that his letter had to do with how he should act publicly to Mivart if he retracted. He would not forgive him. If he does not retract, it would no longer be possible to keep him Secretary of the Linnean Society.

Drosophyllum will be sent when weather permits.

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

Does CD think it desirable for EBT’s wife to produce a new English translation of A. E. Brehm’s work [Illustrirtes Thierleben (1864–7)]?

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.