Summary

"Throttled off" Welwitschia paper at Linnean Society [Trans. Linn. Soc. Lond. 24 (1863): 1–48].

Has read Tocqueville’s Democracy in America [1835–40] – disagrees with it. Tocqueville says democracy in America is a success. Democracy has persisted because there has been no cause for its overthrow (i.e., no struggle for existence, too much mobility).

Sends J. W. Dawson’s unsatisfactory letter.

Summary

John Lubbock regrets GHD did not take the Eton post. JL thinks scientific masters will soon occupy places as high and as profitable as classical masters.

Summary

His reasons for rejecting Atlantis hypothesis connecting Madeira and Canary Islands.

Summary

On F. M. Balfour.

Effects of ammonium carbonate on roots.

FM’s Pontederia case is very curious.

Summary

Fertilisation of barberries.

Passiflora.

Is continuing his experiments on the comparative growth of crossed and self-fertilised plants.

Summary

Discusses dimorphism of Oxalis; one form has 99% sterile anthers. Has found three kinds of fertile anthers.

Summary

JDH recognises the existence of "altered states" of continental species in island floras. The botanists’ difficulty in determining a new species is no grounds for dismissing the important question of altered forms.

Will look for Ascension plants for Ehrenberg.

French Galapagos collections confirm JDH’s view that plants arrived from north.

Cannot agree with Forbes on North Atlantic flora.

Botanical definition of "highness" and "lowness" usually means complexity and simplicity.

Some plants, such as aquatic ones, are cleistogamous. Cannot see why they should not be.

Summary

Thinking about HF’s paper on Plagiaulax [Q. J. Geol. Soc. Lond. 13 (1857): 261–82]. Owen might answer that all Purbeck mammals are marsupials.

Summary

Thanks for new part of "Statistics".

Interested in disjoined species; do they tend to belong to large or small genera, and are they generally members of small families?

Is glad AG will tackle introduced plants; has noticed that the proportion of a particular family to the whole flora tends to be similar in introduced and indigenous plants.

Summary

Reports to CD on what he has found out about Elodea growing near Cambridge.

Sedgwick is speaking at [Cambridge] Philosophical Society on CD’s "supposed errors" [Camb. Herald & Huntingdonshire Gaz. 19 May 1860, pp. 3–4].

JSH wonders how Owen can be so savage toward CD’s views when his own are "to a certain extent of the same character".

Summary

Gives observations on orchid ovules ripening long after blooming.

Infertility with own pollen sometimes does and sometimes does not indicate dimorphism; gives observations on Ximenia, Eschscholtzia and Oncidium flexuosum.

Describes some striking seeds eaten by birds,

and some new dimorphic species.

Variation in Thillia.

Confirms CD’s suspicion that the lancet-fish [Amphioxus] lives in competition with invertebrates: it shares its habitat with a similar-looking Ophelia, which is quite unlike other annelids, just as the lancet-fish is unlike other fishes.

Summary

Believes intermediate varieties are generally less numerous in individuals than the two states that they connect.

Discusses the difficulties of deciding what is the typical form of a species

and gives some opinions on the variability of introduced species compared with indigenous species.

Summary

Orders that one of CD’s Porto Santo rabbits be killed and sent to him.

Asks whether ADB has got young from mating these with females of other breeds.

Summary

Comments extensively on CL’s book [Travels in North America (1845)]. Lyell’s views on slavery, the clergy, education, and coalfields. Has difficulty in tracing Lyell’s course. Comments on geological portions, especially CL’s comparisons of living and fossil organisms to those of South America and Tasmania; animal formation of carbonic acid and effects of vegetable decay; Indians’ use of lumber. Discusses water-borne transportation of wood, fruit, and seeds. Notes distribution of Arctic flora.

Summary

Answers JDH’s questions on connection of SE. England and continent,

on the effect of breaking the Isthmus of Panama,

and on Madeira flora as remnant of Tertiary flora.

Cautionary remarks for JDH on his "Insular floras" speech, designed to strengthen case of "occasional migration" theory.

Summary

Thanks for information about Hottonia.

Has found dimorphism in Forsythia.

Considers AG’s arguments on different terms for dimorphism, but cannot change to using the proposed new term [see 10699].

Summary

Comments at length on CL’s book [Antiquity of man (1863)]. CD is "greatly disappointed that you have not given judgment and spoken fairly out what you think about the derivation of species".

Lists large number of queries concerning minor points.

Praises especially the chapters on language and glaciers.

Comments on the temperature of Africa during the glacial period, especially with regard to the views of Hooker.

Mentions Owen’s paper on the aye-aye [Rep. BAAS 32 (1862) pt 2: 114–16].

Summary

Reports on a strange breed of sheep at Aden,

a Brazilian plant naturalised in Ceylon,

the Australian Casuarina equisetum spreading in Taiwan,

and an excrescence on wing of several thrushes of Taiwan similar to a growth on wing of a Syrian species.

Summary

Studying self-sterility, particularly in Oncidium, where abortion occurs consistently but stigma functions normally. His hybrid orchid crosses show sterility occurs capriciously. Thus it is not a "special endowment".

Disputes Asa Gray’s and Hermann Crüger’s view of rostellar germination.

Doubts absolute sterility of Catasetum.

Disappointed by results with homomorphic cowslips.

Summary

Comments on transport of ducks to Jamaica by hurricanes,

fish feeding on seeds,

and sterility of birds in captivity.