Summary

Will return Benjamin Jowett’s Epistles of St Paul (Jowett 1855) and requests several books, of which the latest is Hugh Miller’s Cruise of the Betsey (Miller 1858).

Summary

Returns the Greenland catalogue, which he has kept too long.

Summary

Asks GB to vote for "a distant connexion of mine" at Athenaeum, and to mention this to Hooker.

Summary

Wrote some weeks ago about Burmese fowl-skins; is willing to send them, carriage paid.

Summary

Asks WBC to plant some kidney beans [on Holy Island near Arran] and to see whether they are ever visited by bees. If no bees visit the island, it would be "curious" to observe what plants grow there.

Summary

Asks about Indian horses. Encloses questions.

Summary

On papilionaceous flowers and CD’s theory that there are no eternal hermaphrodites. Connects this theory to absence of small-flowered legumes in New Zealand and the absence of small bees as pollinators.

Summary

Went to the show and saw EWVH’s birds.

Thinks he will give up his pigeons at the end of the summer.

Summary

Asks to borrow W. C. Hewitson’s book [British oology, 2 vols. (1831–44)].

CD is searching for reliable information on slight variations in the degree of perfection of nests of the same species of birds.

Summary

CD has never doubted probability of Bering Strait land connection.

Family illness.

Summary

Has received Burmese fowls’ skins from Walter Elliot.

Summary

Mrs Henslow’s death stirs reminiscences of happier days.

Summary

Thanks WDF for information on blackbirds’ nests [see Natural selection, p. 505].

Problem of choosing from among the load of curious facts for chapter on "Instinct" [Natural selection, ch. 10; Origin, ch. 7] perplexes him.

Asks about behaviour of chicks in danger and whether crossed animals are wilder than either parent.

Summary

General success of survey makes CD very concerned about sources of error. Wants to meet JDH for an important talk about big genera. Arranges meeting.

Summary

Returns books by Candolle and Robert Brown.

Summary

Thanks GHKT for letter on plant acclimatisation and variation among alpine and lowland forms in Ceylon.

Summary

Six volumes of Candolle’s Prodromus confirm rule that small genera vary less than large. Labiatae an exception to rule.

Summary

Writes of domestic matters

and asks WED to observe cart-horses for traces of dark stripes on spine and cross-stripes on shoulder.

Summary

Thanks LA for presentation copy of Contributions [to the natural history of the United States of America, vol. 1, pt 1: Essay on classification, and vol. 1, pt 2: North American Testudinata (1857)]. Flattered; CD sees there is much of highest interest to him.

Summary

Asks whether botanists tend to record varieties more carefully in large genera or small genera.

Wants information on the ranges of varieties of a species compared to the range of the species.