Summary

Cannot find the [indelicate] passage he referred to in last letter.

Various publication arrangements.

Summary

On mutations in rabbits.

Cytisus case is not a double graft.

Aggressive behaviour of birds of prey.

Summary

Thanks WO for information on platysma, which he did not know could be brought into voluntary action. Is coming to believe it has nothing to do with expression.

On the relation between white colouring and susceptibility to poisonous plants, CD suggests WO send his paper to J. Wyman and propose he investigate whether white as well as black pigs will eat paint-root.

Summary

Is much obliged for information [about rabbits?].

Summary

Reports further observations on contraction of platysma. Has been assisted by J. Wood. [See Expression, pp. 302, 303.]

Summary

Has just sent MS of Descent to printers. Recognises that [because of Franco-Prussian War] the publisher will have given up idea of a German translation.

Though the war is a misfortune for science, CD rejoices at the wonderful success of Germany; has met no one who does not share this feeling.

Summary

Thanks WWR for information on the Nehro idea of beauty and other facts relating to expression.

Summary

Relates instances of rabbits suffering from a condition which affects only the patches of white on their fur.

Will make observations on the platysma for CD.

Summary

Comments on new edition of EH’s book [Natürliche Schöpfungsgeschichte, 2d ed. (1870)].

Mentions his own book [Descent].

Visit by Kölliker.

Summary

Thanks FD for seeds of Canna.

Still thinks it would be worth FD’s while looking at the fertilisation of Lotus; does not think Frank Darwin has exaggerated the novelty of the contrivance.

Summary

Various arrangements concerning the publication of Descent. "It will cause men to prick up [their] ears – & to elevate their eyebrows." JM thinks he will venture to print 2500 copies.

Suggests CD tone down as possibly indelicate a passage on proportion of advances made by the two sexes in animals.

Summary

Sends list of bills.

Summary

Thanks AS for his kindness towards himself and his family. Looks back with great satisfaction to his last visit ("as it will probably prove") to Cambridge.

Summary

Has sent F. Müller "a long screed" about the Passiflora.

Summary

Has forwarded JPMW’s papers to the Linnean Society [four articles by J. P. M. Weale, J. Linn. Soc. Lond. (Bot.) 13 (1870–2): 42–58].

Comments on JPMW’s findings concerning flowers and their fertilisation.

Summary

Thanks JL for his book [Origin of civilization (1870)], which he has read with "extreme interest". Wishes JL had published four or five months earlier as CD would have "so profited & saved so much work". CD will have to modify some of what he has written [in Descent]. Sees they differ a good deal about moral sense "but hardly two men ever do agree on this perplexing subject".

JL’s note of the 16th [see 7277] about the Census arrived too late for CD to answer.

Summary

CD did not promise Appleton stereotypes of text [of Descent]; only of cuts.

Wishes to know which passage JM thought "coarse". Remembers only a quotation from John Hunter on courtship of female being required "to give her desires" [Descent 1: 273]. He fancied a quotation rendered the sentence less coarse.

Summary

Crossing experiments and self-sterility [in Eschscholzia].

Pangenesis.

Hermann Müller on insect adaptations for fertilisation of flowers.

CD working on book on man and sexual selection.

Summary

JM reports 1900 [advance] copies of Descent were taken at his annual sale,

and 340 copies of Origin [5th ed.] were sold.

Sheets for Dutch publisher will be sent to CD immediately. JM cautions against possibility that Dutch edition will anticipate the English.

Summary

Thanks for HHV’s interest in the census [CD’s plan to add questions on consanguineous marriage to the census] on which CD hopes to persuade Sir J. Lubbock to speak.