Summary

Has heard of mules of canary and other finches breeding occasionally, but it is rare, and there is hardly one authenticated case of two such mules breeding together.

Sixteen of the household at Down are sick with influenza.

Summary

Admires JDH’s paper on Arctic plants ["Distribution of Arctic plants", Trans. Linn. Soc. Lond. 23 (1862): 251–348]. Such papers compel people to reflect on modification of species;

JDH will be driven to a cooled globe.

Serious erratum in paper.

New and original evidence in case of Greenland. Its flora requires accidental means of transport by ice and currents.

Summary

Obliged for MTM’s ["Vegetable morphology", Br. & Foreign Med.-Chir. Rev. 29 (1862): 202–18].

Summary

Writes that [Murray’s] terms are very favourable; has never heard of such terms offered for a first work. HWB can depend on fact that Murray is pleased with it [The naturalist on the river Amazons].

Summary

Thanks for information on domestic animals of Indians.

Glad Murray thinks well of MS of The naturalist on the river Amazons.

CD working on proofs of Orchids.

Summary

Has directed Murray to send Harris a copy of Origin.

Summary

CD wishes he could sympathise with Asa Gray’s politics.

Orchids to appear soon.

Pre-glacial Arctic distribution.

Work on floral dimorphism.

High opinion of Buckle as a writer.

Summary

Pleased that new German edition of Origin is wanted. Wishes to make corrections.

Suggests German translation of Orchids.

Comments on HGB’s book [Untersuchungen (1858)].

Summary

Thinks JDH is a bit hard on Asa Gray.

Bates’s letter is that of a true thinker. Asks to see JDH’s to Bates. Point raised in it is most difficult. "There is one clear line of distinction; – when many parts of structure as in woodpecker show distinct adaptation to external bodies, it is preposterous to attribute them to effect of climate etc. – but when a single point, alone, as a hooked seed, it is conceivable that it may thus have arisen." His study of orchids shows nearly all parts of the flower co-adapted for fertilisation by insects and therefore the result of natural selection. Mormodes ignea "is a prodigy of adaptation".

Summary

Gives some observations on changes in pistil position with age in Monochaetum. Asks whether AG can observe Rhexia for similar movements.

"One of the best men, though at present unknown", H. W. Bates, has taken up natural selection.

Summary

Sends paper to be read ["Sexual forms of Catasetum", Collected papers 2: 63–70].

Summary

Orchids taking up all his time.

He longs to be at work again on poultry and rabbits.

Summary

On effect of external conditions: CD thinks all variability due to changes in conditions of life because there is more variability under unnatural domestic conditions than under nature, and changed conditions affect the reproductive organs. But why one seedling out of thousands presents some new character transcends the wildest powers of conjecture.

Not shaken by "saltus" – he had examined all cases of normal structure resembling monstrosities which appear per saltum. Has fought his tendency to attribute too much to natural selection; perhaps he has too much conquered it.

Summary

Asks JDH to correct names of two species of Calanthe.

Note from Asa Gray ends "Yours cordially", so CD hopes he is forgiven.

His Catasetum paper will be read 3 Apr [Collected papers 2: 63–70].

Plants and seeds sent will be of great use, especially Lythrum, which according to J. P. E. Vaucher seems grand case of trimorphism. Asks what sort of man Vaucher is.

Summary

Both JDH’s and Bates’s letters are excellent. JDH has said all that can be said against direct effect of conditions, but CD still sticks to his own and Bates’s side. CD should have done what JDH suggests (since naturally he is pleased to attribute little to conditions) – viz., started on the fundamental principle that variation is innate and stated that afterwards, perhaps, this principle would be made explicable. Variation will show that "use and disuse" have some effect. Does not believe in perfect reversion. Demurs at JDH’s "centrifugal variation"; the doctrine of the good of diversification amply accounts for variation being centrifugal.

The wonderful mechanism of Mormodes ignea.

Summary

Will forward TFJ’s letter to Charles Lyell.

Gives up the marine theory [of the parallel roads of Glen Roy] for ‘ever & ever’, but ‘with a groan’.

Summary

Will try to come to Linnean Society to read his paper, but has been "extra headachy". Fears his paper ["Sexual forms of Catasetum", Collected papers 2: 63–70] will not be worth Lindley’s attendance.

Summary

Explains how melting of ice in Glen Spean could have successively freed two lower cols, thus establishing the water-levels that determined the two lower shelves in Glen Roy.

Plans to read a paper to the Linnean Society ["Sexual forms of Catasetum", Collected papers 2: 63–70].

Summary

Declines the honour of acting as Steward at the Annual Dinner of the Royal Literary Fund.

Summary

On Vanilla.

Asks JDH to observe whether he has both long- and short-styled form of Menyanthes

and whether he has "Saxifrages with long hairs glandular at the tip".

The Linnean Society session made him vomit all night. Fears he must give up trying to read papers or speak. "It is a horrid bore. I can do nothing like other people."