Summary

CD has read all of WHD’s and J. J. Drysdale’s papers [on spontaneous generation, monads, and the origin of life] and finds them the best work on the subject.

The function of bladders in Utricularia is not to float the plant.

Summary

Two photographs of T. W. Clarke, Jr, aged three, offered as examples of expression.

Summary

Sends copy of Arabische Korallen [1876].

Comments on reception of his paper on "Gastrula" [see 10012].

Summary

Thanks FG for his report [on the statistical validity of CD’s experiments; see Cross and self-fertilisation, pp. 16–18]. Discusses FG’s comments, his own experiments, and the means by which the results may be analysed.

Summary

Has sent his paper on Echinoidea [see 10373] as a token of his veneration. He tried to address the confusion in knowledge about the different parts of the exoskeleton of the Echinodermata by tracing certain relations of homology not previously noticed. Much more work is required.

Summary

Thanks EH for Arabische Korallen [1876].

Summary

Reports on the tendency of the normally fruitless Convolvulus arvensis, to form fruit when roots are cut and plant is in danger of dying.

Summary

Reports an observation on his child’s behaviour;

claims to have captured two moths of different species in the act of copulating with each other.

Summary

Proposes an unorthodox theory of generation that explains sex determination and atavism.

Summary

Thanks WED for his letter of 20 December 1875. Is surprised and delighted by the support from WED and CD for the Index.

Summary

EH’s Arabische Korallen is spirited, clear, and poetical. With respect to formation of islands, thinks EH lays too much stress on views of Ehrenberg. Admires drawings.

Summary

Thanks for KHvS’s book [La province de Smyrne (1873)].

Discusses possible meeting.

Summary

Are plants that arise from vegetative propagation individuals or merely parts of the original parent plant?

Summary

He is surveying the literature on the struggle for existence among pasture plants. Asks CD for the "many cases on record" of changed relations among plants under slightly changed conditions alluded to in the Origin. [See M. T. Masters, J. B. Lawes and J. M. Gilbert "Agricultural, botanical, and chemical results of experiments on the mixed herbage of permanent meadow, conducted for more than twenty years in succession on the same land (pt 2, The botanical results)", Philos. Trans. R. Soc. Lond. 173 (1883): 1181–413.]

Summary

Purchases cigarettes for CD.

Summary

In response to CD’s query, answers that he has frequently heard discussions at the Horticultural Society of a saccharine secretion from leaves of the lime and has no doubt it really does occur. [See Cross and self-fertilisation, p. 402.]

Summary

Obliged for Belfast Journal.

Almost impossible to determine what constitutes an individual. Definition for sexually reproducing organisms does not apply to lower ones.

Summary

Agrees to aid HA in applying for membership in a society.

Summary

Thanks for reviews of Insectivorous plants and of Climbing plants in Nation and American Journal Science [see 10329].

AG’s essay on seed dispersal ["Burs in the borage family", Am. Nat. 10 (1876): 1–4].

Preparing book on advantages of crossing [Cross and self-fertilisation].

Summary

Asks CD to come up to vote for Lankester.

Severely critical of R. L. Tait’s paper on Nepenthes communicated to the Royal Society.