Summary

Wishes to propose John Lubbock as a member of the Entomological Society.

Asks for B. H. Hodgson’s pamphlet on sheep ["Tame sheep and goats", J. Asiat. Soc. Bengal 16 (1847): 1003–26]. Asks for odd numbers of GRW’s work [A natural history of the Mammalia (1846–8)]. Regrets that this work has stopped.

Summary

Invites GRW to a dinner party with other scientists.

Summary

Invites GRW and his family to visit.

Summary

Wishes to know the correct name for the British Museum’s specimen of an Abyssinian wolf described by Wilhelm Rueppell, Neue Wirbelthiere zu der Fauna von Abyssinien [1835–40] .

Summary

Knows no one in Buenos Aires. Suggests sites in South America where Auguste Bravard can find fossils.

Ray Society has delayed distribution [of Living Cirripedia (1851)].

Summary

Sends fossil cirripedes for the museum’s collection.

Summary

Sends list of aberrant forms of Curculionidae.

Discusses in detail the artificiality of Carl Johan Schönherr’s classification. Sound generalisations about geographical distribution depend on sound classifications. Warns against putting too much faith in current catalogues.

Summary

Gives instances of sexual differences in the number of tarsi within species of Coleoptera and also variation in the number of tarsi between related species.

Summary

A page of [unspecified] text is missing from a parcel of material received from GRW.

CD "hopes and expects to live to see Carboniferous, & perhaps even Silurian, mammifers!"

Has several questions to ask whenever they meet.

Summary

Comparison of skulls of Ichthyosaurus and Cetacea.

Summary

Asks GRW if there is any easy systematic work on Lepidoptera for his sons. Considers making out the names from descriptions fine practice for the intellect; mere collecting is idle work.

Summary

Regularly attends Owen’s lectures. Owen at pains to show groups are not linked. Thus makes Lepidosiren appear fish-like.

GRW thinks embryology will become chief guide to insect classification. But contradictions between classification based on embryological and adult characters do occur.

Summary

Has found no reference to construction of bees’ cells in works referred to by CD. Describes cell of Osmia atricapilla. Hive-bees’ cell was described at Entomological Society.

Summary

Bees’ cells. Observations on Osmia atricapilla.

Summary

GRW’s observations of and ideas on bees’ and wasps’ cells.

Summary

Bees’ cells; GRW thinks hexagonal shape is accidental. Encloses notes on cells of Icaria.

Summary

Bees’ cells; is the hexagonal shape deliberate or merely the result of lateral pressure on cylinders?

Summary

It is not true that all the fossil cave bears are of the same species.

Summary

Has no drone cells in collection of honeycombs. Discusses construction of cells by bees and ability of bees to judge distances in constructing comb.

Summary

Returns a letter from a Mr Walsh – "a clear-headed man on my side". What he says about sea trout in lochs would make a good case for CD if borne out by professional ichthyologists.