Summary

Thanks for sending the impressions of the gems, but, because CD is ignorant of archaeology, the recipient should not send one for inspection.

Summary

Thanks for advice concerning preparation of soil for experiments. Will order the salts. Asks about burning soil or washing it with acid.

Thanks for invitation. His son [Francis] would like to inspect JHG’s plots.

Summary

Comments on paper by HE [see 10328].

Summary

Sends signed enclosure.

FG will hear of germination of peas in a few days.

Summary

Thanks RLT for his letter. CD took much trouble over his two cases [regrowth of amputated supernumerary digits, in Variation] but the evidence was shaky.

Summary

CD came to believe Drosera drew its nourishment from insects because it grows where no other plants survive. Doubts glands are modified stomata.

Suggests works by Grönland and Trécul.

Summary

Sends some cash to help WED with moving expenses.

Summary

Thanks for EAS’s paper, translated from its original German, Sur la formation et la division des cellules (Strasburger 1876a).

Summary

"The longer I live the more I come to believe in inheritance. I have some ""orderlings"" in my own composition, and I wish I had transmitted more of it to my own offspring."

Summary

Glad to hear that [German edition of] Insectivorous plants is published.

Thanks for errata in Climbing plants [2d ed.].

Sends list [missing] of his papers, with those certainly not worth translating marked with a red line.

Reports on work in progress.

Summary

All who battle in the cause of evolution do good service.

Has no questions about the natural history of Bermuda.

Summary

Clarifies a passage [in Coral reefs, 2d ed. (1874)], which JVC had questioned.

Summary

RLT’s two articles in Spectator [4 Mar and 25 Mar 1876] greatly honour CD.

Tait has made a good point about "Survival of the Fittest".

Dr Rudinger’s extensive inquiries show that all eminent German surgeons are unanimous about non-growth of extra digit after amputation.

J. Kollmann has written regretting CD has given up atavism and extra digits [in 2d ed. of Variation]; gives new evidence of a rudimentary sixth digit in batrachians.

Summary

Thanks AB for his paper on the Norwegian flora ["Forsög til en Theori om Invandringen af Norges Flora", Nyt Mag. Naturvidensk. 21 (1876): 279–362]. Appears to CD to be the most important contribution towards understanding the present distribution of plants since Edward Forbes’s essay on the effects of the glacial period ["On the connexion between the distribution of existing fauna and flora of the British Isles and the geological changes which have affected their area", Mem. Geol. Surv. Engl. & Wales 1 (1846): 336–432].

Summary

James Paget’s scepticism about regrowth of digits. Suggests RLT experiment with amputation of digits, both extra and normal, of kittens and fowls. Fears they will fail to regrow, but, if regrowth is proved, it will be an important discovery.

Summary

Thanks FJC for paper by Alexander Fraustadt ["Vegetative Organe von Dionaea", Ell. Beitr. Biol. Pfl. 2 (1877): 27–64].

Mentions paper by A. W. Bennett ["Glands of carnivorous plants", Mon. Microsc. J. 15 (1876): 1–5].