Summary

Accedes to CD’s request to let Appleton have a set of stereotypes of the 6th English edition of Origin at a little above cost.

Summary

JM arranges to pay CD for the latest issue of Descent.

Summary

The reception of Expression has exceeded even JM’s expectations; 5267 copies were sold at the annual sale. CD’s modesty about the work had misled him about its probable sale.

Summary

R. Cooke has increased the order for heliotypes [for Expression] to 8000. Reimburses CD for cost of artists.

Summary

Messrs Clowes have received MS of Expression. JM submits specimen pages for CD’s approval.

Summary

Is convinced that 2000 more copies [of Expression] must be printed without delay in order to meet demand. He therefore asks CD to send his corrections to the printer at once.

Summary

Price of Expression is 12s.

Sends cheque to pay CD his share of profits on Origin [6th ed.].

Summary

Parallel quotations from Benjamin Franklin and Descent about absorption of heat by different colours; applies to winter and summer plumage of birds.

Reasoning power in dogs.

Summary

Compares Origin to Newton’s Principia and Adam Smith’s Wealth of nations.

His view of CD’s response to Mivart.

On mammae;

gradualism of evolution;

suicide among savages.

Summary

Sends two vines for CD’s experiments, with instructions for grafting.

Mentions a hybrid plum–peach.

Summary

Observations on expression: women gnash teeth when sexually excited. W. Africans do not kiss.

Summary

Replies to CD’s queries. Duke of Cornwall Pelargonium is fertile with its own pollen. Has failed to produce hybrids from other varieties besides P. peltatum and P. elegans. Sends numbers of the Florist which contain an account of his mode of procedure ["On cross-breeding pelargoniums" Florist & Pomologist (1872): 10, 34, 50].

Reports a confirmation of his theory of the prepotence of the male parent.

Summary

AE, philosophy professor, is disposed to accept natural selection, but argues that it lacks direction. Suggests that direction would be given if one assumed the appearance of multiple advantageous traits in a single individual. Cites Herbert Spencer, Rudolf Virchow, Claude Bernard, and Carl Vogt.

Summary

Gladstone’s private secretary [West] has written that the Government plans to alter JDH’s position with regard to the First Commissioner of Works [Ayrton].

Huxley is not better after his Brighton trip.

Summary

Has no objection to CD’s alluding to FM’s idea that sexual selection has come into play in mimetic butterflies.

Reports observations on other butterflies and on termites.