Summary

CD is curious about the feathers but will wait to see whether H. C. Sorby’s paper appears.

Summary

The Society’s rejection of R. L. Tait’s paper on Nepenthes is a lesson which will last CD for his life. It is clear that he should not have sent it.

Summary

Gives a referee’s report on Samuel Haughton’s paper ["Notes on physical geology, no. IV", read 4 Apr 1878; published as "Physical geology", Nature 18 (1878): 266–8]. Believes his estimate of geological time is extremely wild. The conclusion that the interval of time separating the Miocene from the present is greater than that between the commencement of the Secondary period and the Miocene "seems almost monstrous". Recommends the paper not be published in the Proceedings.

Summary

Reports on Joseph Prestwich’s paper, "On the origin of the parallel roads of Lochaber" [read 1 May 1879]. Strongly recommends that the paper be published in Philosophical Transactions [Philos. Trans. R. Soc. Lond. 170 (1880): 663–726].

Summary

Thanks GGS for calculation [to determine the chances of the same peculiarity recurring in a family, see Variation 2: 5]

Summary

He is certain he heard "expressly excluded" [of Origin from consideration in Royal Society award of Copley Medal]. Believes GGS may have inadvertently substituted "excluded" for "omitted". THH then submits his reasons for objecting to the passage as a whole even with the word "omitted".

Summary

THH never imagined that "we" referred to anyone but the [Royal] Society Council. Still objects to inclusion of the passage, since "an agreement to say nothing" [about the Origin] does not justify comment on it by one party to the agreement.

Summary

THH rejects GGS’s charges. Chides him with possibility that if he substituted "Falconer" for "Busk" he might have done it also for "excluded" and "omitted".

Summary

Thanks for congratulations on Francis Darwin’s success in the tripos examinations at the university of Cambridge.

The king of Prussia has awarded him the order Pour le Mérite für Wissenschaften und Künste.

Summary

Wants to know how the colour of the eye of the peacock’s tail is produced, whether it depends upon colouring matter in the feathers or reflection, and whether any varying structural change will account for the series of colours surrounding it.

Summary

Thanks GGS for information on the peacock’s feathers. Asks whether the colour zones around the "eye" could result from varying the thickness of the film of colouring matter or whether it would require different kinds of colouring matter.

Summary

Sends GGS examples of feathers from an albino peacock and repeats his query about the zones of colour [see 5950].