Summary

"If you will apply to any bookseller whatever you will procure a copy.–– Publisher Murray."

Summary

CD appreciates the correspondent’s suggestion.

Summary

Has pleasure in signing the [missing] enclosure, with every word of which he fully agrees.

Summary

Discusses two factors possibly causing modification of body or mind of an organism; habit and direct action of external conditions on the one hand, and selection, natural or artificial, on the other; considers their relative importance.

Summary

Sends a letter from William Huggins about a case of inherited fright in three generations of mastiffs. Discusses the different origins of instincts and their inheritance.

Summary

Comments on article ["Perception and instinct in lower animals", Nature 7 (1871): 377–8].

Explains his contention that "many of the most wonderful instincts have been acquired, independently of habit, through the preservation of useful variations of pre-existing instincts". Cites examples: sterile workers of several species of social insects have acquired different instincts; movements of tumbler pigeons. Speculates that "many instincts have originated from modification or variations in the brain".

Summary

"The following fact with respect to the habits of ants, which I believe to be quite new, has been sent to me by a distinguished geologist, Mr J. D. Hague [see 8788]; and it appears well worth publishing."

Summary

"I was born in the town of Shrewsbury Feb. 12, 1809."

Summary

Explains that his publisher has erred in announcing his book [Cross and self-fertilisation] prematurely. [See 8890 and 8897.]

Summary

Comments on ability of recipient to move his scalp.

Summary

Printed memorandum giving reasons why there should be subsidy on a large scale of scientific research unencumbered with teaching.

Summary

CD, in commenting on Wyville Thomson’s "Notes from the Challenger" [Nature 8 (1873): 347–9], recapitulates his work on rudimentary male cirripedes [Living Cirripedia], especially the complementary males attached to hermaphrodites. Offers an explanation, on evolutionary grounds, of their function and size.

Summary

Has heard that Mr Allen wishes to let his house and thinks it probable that it would suit his son [Francis]. Asks whether he may have refusal of it.

Summary

Will not require assistance of correspondent’s cousin in correcting his MS [2d ed. of Descent]. His son [George] will undertake it.

Summary

Recounts instances suggesting that animals have a sense of direction.

Summary

Sends a letter from J. D. Hague confirming his earlier observation [see 8788] of frightened behaviour of ants when they come upon dead ants. CD had asked for confirmation because J. T. Moggridge had suggested that the ants’ behaviour was alarm at the scent of the observer’s fingers.

Summary

Gives opinion on the merits of Mr [Stephen P. J.] Eng[leheart (Darwin family doctor)]. Believes he would make an excellent county officer if elected to the district office of health.

Summary

Arranges a visit to CL.

Summary

Comments on FG’s article ["Hereditary improvement", Fraser’s Mag. 87 (1873): 116–30]. Finds it "the sole feasible, yet I fear utopian, plan of procedure in improving the human race".

Thanks for rabbits for Balfour.

Mentions reading W. R. Greg’s Enigmas [of life (1872)].

Summary

Asks whether his observations on absorptive powers of glandular hairs of plants are new facts.

Asks for a Drosophyllum.

Comments on Francis Galton’s article in Fraser’s Magazine,

Greg’s Enigmas,

and Alphonse de Candolle’s Histoire des sciences.