Summary

Acknowledges CD’s complaint against a paper [by St George Mivart] in the last Quarterly Review [see 9568]. Agrees to print George Darwin’s answer [see 9596].

Summary

Thanks JM for granting his request. Will write to D. Appleton.

CD is sorry about heavy loss from Expression; still thinks the book will sell in the course of years.

Summary

Sends a suggested title [for Insectivorous plants?].

Summary

Recommends that JM consider publishing a new edition of J. F. McLennan’s Primitive marriage [1865]. CD considers it very valuable and not too indelicate.

Summary

Asks JM, as a favour, to use his influence with the Editor of Quarterly Review to print George Darwin’s answer to the charge made by the author of "Primitive man" [St George Mivart] that GD approved "of the encouragement of vice to check population".

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

Orchids is at last sold out. Settles account.

The Origin [6th ed.] is making good [sales] progress.

Expression is not selling.

Summary

Has finished corrections for 2d edition of Descent – "as hard work as I have ever had in my life". Estimates it is 40 pages longer than 1st edition.

Summary

Statement of stock on hand of CD’s works.

Expression, curiously, at a dead stand-still.

Summary

Discusses 2d edition of Descent. CD is inclined to a cheap edition and asks JM to consider a one-volume edition in double-column format.

Summary

Thanks for information about Hedychium. Hopes wings of Sphinx will be found covered with pollen for that will be a fine bit of prophecy from the structure of a flower to special and new means of fertilisation.

Has been at Descent so hard he has done nothing, not even H. Spencer’s answer.

Has not yet read Croll ["Ocean currents", London Edinburgh & Dublin Philos. Mag. 47 (1874): 94–122, 168–90].

Has heard nothing about Carter and Eozoon. Eozoon, he infers, is done for.

Has read Belt [The naturalist in Nicaragua (1874)]: best of all natural history travel books.

Has written to Fritz Müller about leaf-carrying ants.

Hopes to resume work on Drosera.

Summary

Sends a draft of his letter to the editor of the Quarterly Review [137 (1874): 587–9], answering Mivart’s charges. Encloses draft of CD’s letter to John Murray, urging publication of GHD’s defence, with George’s amendments.

Summary

Encloses letter and sketch from O. N. Rood on pointed ears.

Reports observations on Sarracenia variolaris. A correspondent finds that the fluid in the pitchers is anaesthetic and that a sweet trail runs down the plant, nearly to the ground, to lure up ants.

Encloses two articles on insectivorous plants [Nation 18 (1874): 216–17, 232–4].

Summary

Thinks Frank and he have worked out Pinguicula well and they long to attack Utricularia. Tried several plants with sticky glandular hairs; some few absorb ammonia, but the greater number do not. If JDH sends plant or seed of Lychnis CD will examine it to see whether it catches many flies. Asa Gray has written him much about Sarracenia, with a specimen showing the splendid dodge by which ground insects are enticed up and then drowned. Describes how it may be investigated, to see whether it absorbs decayed matter from flies, or ammonia thus generated.

Summary

On the decline of population of the Hawaiian Islands, before advent of Europeans; infanticide, polyandry.

Summary

Thanks CD for Descent, 2d ed.

Comments on German edition of CD’s collected works.

Sales of his Anthropogenie [1874] in various countries.

Anticlericalism and progress of Darwinism in Germany.

Summary

Doubts whether sudden and great variations often occur.

Comments on colours of flowers.

Summary

Would like to see C. S. Wake’s paper ["Marriage among primitive peoples", Anthropologia 1 (1873–5): 197–207].

Will return L. H. Morgan’s work [? Systems of consanguinity (1871)].

Murray suggests Macmillan’s are more likely to reprint JFMcL’s Primitive marriage.

Summary

Sends CD his photo

and a copy of his address at Hartford ["Change by gradual modification not the universal law", Proc. Am. Assoc. Adv. Sci. (1874) pt 2: 7–12]. Does not believe his observations are unfavourable to natural selection but feels there are other factors involved in the origin of form.

Discusses further his work on colour and sex in plants; the linking of high colour and maleness.

Summary

Russian Expression has sold nearly 2000 copies.

Plans to come to England to study collections of vertebrate fossils from the Chalk. This will complement his work in the south of France.