Summary

Discusses insects of south temperate S. America and New Zealand, especially with respect to the distribution and origin of Chilean Carabi, and has sent for a German monograph to learn about the eleven species he has found.

He refers to Chilean poverty in butterflies; scanty New Zealand insect fauna.

An analysis of south temperate insects is desirable, but the small English collections make him afraid to undertake it.

Summary

Encloses a passage from his book, The botany of the voyage of H.M.S. "Herald" [1852–7].

Discusses possibility of publishing work on flora of Hawaiian Islands.

Summary

Asks for any authentic cases of "sports", which CD calls "bud-variations". Flowers introduced from warmer temperate regions are said to be particularly apt to sport in this way.

CD now has proof that Cinchona is dimorphic and that some dimorphic plants are absolutely sterile with their own-form pollen.

Asks GHKT to examine or send pollen specimens of two Ceylon genera.

Summary

Sorry to hear of JDH’s household troubles.

Will try to get a couple of flowers of Leschenaultia to send him.

"What a good case that of the Cameroons"; the 4000ft [elevation] is much to CD’s "private satisfaction".

Sends JDH a copy of Orchids.

Summary

Thanks for letter and "valuable" extracts.

If S. American Carabi differ more from other species than do those from other distant locations (e.g., Siberia, Europe, etc.), CD agrees that difference would be too great to have occurred in the recent glacial age; CD also rejects independent origin. Plants seem to migrate more readily than animals. HWB should not underrate length of glacial period; CD also believes they will be driven to an older glacial period.

Sorry about news of British Museum – hopeless to contend against anyone supported by Owen.

CD dearly wishes HWB could find a situation in which he could give time to science.

Summary

JDH admits he wrote Gardeners’ Chronicle and Natural History Review articles on orchids [Gard. Chron. (1862): 789–90, 863, 910; Nat. Hist. Rev. n.s. 2 (1862): 371–6].

JDH’s objections to CD’s idea of how Greenland was repopulated. Temperate Greenland has as Arctic a flora as Arctic Greenland – a fact of astounding force. Why should certain Scandinavian species be absent? Migration by sea-currents can no more account for the present distribution in Greenland than can special creation.

Summary

Household problems – stolen silver, maids. His house for some months has had reputation for being not a little disreputable.

On Cameroon plants.

Summary

M. J. Berkeley wrote London Review & Wkly J. Polit. article.

CD is "out of sight the best physiological observer and experimenter that Botany ever saw".

Laments how much he [JDH] missed when doing the Listera ["Functions and structure of the rostellum of Listera ovata", Philos. Trans. R. Soc. Lond. 144 (1854): 259–64].

Illness of wife and father.

"More plants from Fernando Po and more European".

Summary

Sorry to hear of Mrs Hooker’s health and domestic problems. Wishes natural selection had produced neuters who would not flirt or marry.

Will be eager to hear Cameroon results.

Wishes JDH would discuss the "mundane glacial period". Still believes it will be "the turning point of all recent geographical distribution".

Pollen placed for 65 hours on apparent (CD still thinks real) stigma of Leschenaultia has not protruded a vestige of a tube.

"Oliver the omniscient" has produced an article in Botanische Zeitung with accurate account of all CD saw in Viola.

Asa Gray’s "red-hot" praise of Orchids [Am. J. Sci. 2d ser. 34 (1862): 138–51].

Summary

Has HF met with any cases of what gardeners call "sports" and what CD will call "bud-variations"?

Summary

Oliver has written able paper on dimorphism for Natural History Review [n.s. 2 (1862): 235–43].

CD’s account of Viola is novel and interesting.

Has finished Cameroon mountain plants.

Jury work at exhibition.

Domestic problems – wife is ill, no cook, etc.

Summary

Encourages DO to publish his paper and put his name to it. [Paper apparently not published.] Concurs with his views on primordial nature of hermaphroditism.

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

Sends CD ch. 2 of his book [The naturalist on the river Amazons] for suggestions, having accepted CD’s recommendations concerning ch. 1.

Effects of climate on dress in ch. 1 similar to, but independent of, notions expressed by CD in his Journal of researches [p. 381].

On geology, book deals with distribution and theory of deltas of the Amazon.

Summary

AG’s "capital" review of Orchids [Am. J. Sci. 2d ser. 34 (1862): 138–44].

Thinks there are three forms of Lythrum salicaria.

Discusses transport of seeds by sea.

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

Had it not been for CD, JDH would never have written such papers as his one on Arctic flora. The "evulgation" of CD’s views is the purest pleasure he derives from them.

He too is staggered that Greenland ought to have been depopulated during the glacial period. Absence of Caltha is fatal to its re-population by chance migration.

Summary

Cannot see how J. W. Dawson can accuse JDH of asserting a subsidence of Arctic America. Much of evidence for subsidence during glacial period will prove false as it largely rests on ice action which is more and more viewed as subaerial.

Dawson is biased against Darwinism.

Suggests Greenland may have been repopulated after glacial period extinguished flora, by migration in sea-currents.

Max Müller’s view of origin of language is weakest part of his book [see 3752].

Would like to examine the rare Cypripedium hirsutissimum.

Summary

Lighthearted thoughts on "the development of an Aristocracy" after a visit to Walcot Hall, Shropshire.

On CD’s point about the effect of changed conditions on the reproductive organs, JDH does not see why this is not "itself a variation, not necessarily induced by domestication, but accompanying some variety artificially selected".