Summary

Petition to protect gigantic tortoises on the Mascarene.

Summary

Encloses a circular [9384?] to explain the predicament he is in. Asks whether AG can get anyone at the British Museum, other than Owen, to join J. E. Gray in signing.

Believes the account of the Mallotus in American Naturalist [5 (1871): 119] is trustworthy.

Summary

Thanks for JL’s willingness to sell land.

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Wants some plants for observation and for experimentation on their powers of movement.

Asks WTT-D to make observations on plants with sensitive stamens or pistil.

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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

Subscribes to a reprint of Pieter Boddaert’s Table des planches enluminéez d’histoire naturelle [check ‘éez’!?] [1874].

Summary

Many thanks for Boddaert [see 9389].

Summary

C. V. Riley’s case of Pronuba moth and the fertilisation of Yucca, is the most wonderful case of fertilisation ever published [Am. Nat. 7 (1873): 619–23].

Summary

Thanks EM for essay ["Sopra un rara anomalia dell’osso malare", Annu. Soc. Nat. Modena 7 (1873): 1–50]. CD agrees as far as he understands. Cannot see how new modifications could arise by atavism. "The more I study nature, the more I feel convinced that species generally change by extremely slight modifications."

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

Finding that the leaves of Drosera digest all the phosphate of lime out of bones and then remain clasped over the bones for a long time, CD wants to determine whether it is the phosphate of lime or the animal matter in the bones that keeps them clasped. He asks EF to send 2 or 3 grams of pure phosphate of lime for his testing. [See 9411.] Will experiment in the summer using EF’s suggestion that leaves might serve to test weak sewage. Results of Sanderson’s experiments with acids of great use.

Summary

Asks correspondent to obtain odd numbers of Flora.

Summary

WW’s information accords with other accounts lately received. CD had formed an erroneous opinion on the subject.

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Thanks for the seeds and plants that he requested.

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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

Thanks for the pure phosphate of lime.

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Discusses LR’s communication concerning supernumerary mammae.

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Is sorry to hear the news about the cousin question – a real misfortune.

Congratulates GHD on being nearly finished with work on Descent.

Summary

F. M. Balfour is in Naples. Comments on rate at which sea eats back the land, as given in early editions of Origin.