Summary

Thanks him for interesting letter from a Mr Wood on heredity in fruit-trees.

Summary

Comments on HM’s paper ["Anwendung der Darwin’schen Lehre auf Bienen", Verh. Naturhist. Ver. preuss. Rheinland 29 (1872): 1–96];

sexual selection in bees.

Encloses account on habits of Bombus.

Summary

Outlines his theory on the origin of existing orders of leaf arrangement. Believes spiral and whorled orders have evolved from a primitive distichous arrangement. These arrangements permit a compact bud form of small surface area that can withstand external changes in temperature, and in particular can tolerate frost.

Summary

Responds to CD’s comments on his MS on phyllotaxy.

The initial variation required by his theory would be a slight twist of the bud-axis; believes the frequent twisting of stems and branches renders such a variation possible.

Admits he placed too much emphasis on the importance of frost. He should have spoken more generally of "vicissitudes of climate".

Summary

On variegated leaves; a feature not inherited consistently.

Summary

Asks CD for seeds of some plants.

Summary

Privately advises CD against having anything to do with W. P. Snow, whose personality and past conduct on a mission vessel were very bad.

Reports on the successes of the missionaries on the Beagle Channel [Tierra del Fuego].

Summary

AE, philosophy professor, is disposed to accept natural selection, but argues that it lacks direction. Suggests that direction would be given if one assumed the appearance of multiple advantageous traits in a single individual. Cites Herbert Spencer, Rudolf Virchow, Claude Bernard, and Carl Vogt.

Summary

Mentions work he did in the Sandwich Islands. Asks to visit and bring shells.

Summary

Obliged for letter on worm-castings. Asks GK to observe them in southern Europe.

Summary

Acting as Superintendent of Royal Botanic Garden, Calcutta.

Observations on worm-castings in India.

Summary

CD insists too strongly, in Descent, on man’s origin from a simian ancestor, rather than some other primate.

Summary

Will call on CD next year, when he will have worked out the embryology of Amphioxus; he believes it is not primitive but a degenerate form of fish. He believes the true ancestors of vertebrates are annelids.

Summary

Wild plants that live at the edges of civilisation, e.g., forest flowers growing on grazed land, are always reduced in size.

Summary

Sends paper read before Anthropological Institute ["Strictures on Darwinism, pt 1", J. Anthropol. Inst. 2 (1873): 21–40]. CD is his master, though they disagree.

Criticises Wallace’s "contemptuous phrases".

Is studying elevation and subsidence.

Summary

Responds to GdeS’s comments on Descent [see 8246]. Cannot give up belief in close relationship of man to higher Simiae.

Summary

Reports a monkey-like child in Teneriffe.

Summary

Impressions of Duluth and the natural history of its environs.

Summary

Thanks CD for Expression.

Describes work on Die Kalkschwämme and its principal conclusions.

The application of biogenetic law.

Notes variability among calcareous sponges.

Gastrula-like "Gastraea" as ancestor of multicellular animals.

Posits homology between Hydra, Olynthus of calcareous sponges, and initial germ layers of higher animals.

Comments on Lubbock’s Prehistoric times [1865]

and on David Strauss’s Der alte und der neue Glaube [1872].

Summary

No need to apologise for not quoting AH’s paper on acceleration and retardation.

Agassiz introduced AH to ammonites and entrusted collection to him. Has followed developmental history of each species and placed them within geological formations. Found evolutionary history of species recapitulated only to a degree in individual development. Stages frequently skipped. Explains why young of later animals are like adults that preceded them. Retardation entirely idea of Edward Drinker Cope. Sends paper to explain it. Acceleration can explain degraded forms. Often like youthful stage with which series began. Often resemble old age of earlier series. Regularity of these series incompatible with natural selection. How can selection account for degraded final stages or for predictability of development? Franz Hilgendorf’s Paludinae from Steinheim lake show same parallelism in development. May be possible to reconcile this with selection. But Trochiformis begins to show degradation in beds where it is most numerous and has largest individuals, i.e., where selection seems to be favouring it. Will work on Steinheim shells this winter.