Summary

An invitation to Down for Sunday 16 October.

Summary

Last night had tremendous thunderstorm. Will ask Goebel about proshelismus. Describes experiments on beans. Please send Bessy’s address. Has got to know nice Englishman named Purdy and his wife. Bathes nearly every night with the Finlander.

Summary

Found worm-casts atop a 2555–foot hill.

Summary

CD cannot come to London to sit for photograph. Sends one taken by son [Leonard], which family considers the best likeness. CD would be glad to give a sitting at Down.

Summary

CD too unwell to read. JS should not send Primula paper MS until CD returns home.

Summary

JS’s MS [of Primula paper] arrived, but CD is too ill to read it.

CD has sent JS’s paper on orchid sterility to Botanische Zeitung and to Hooker.

Summary

Regrets CD’s poor health.

"Do not return Primula MS."

Summary

CD thanks AN for the note and remarks on the partridge’s leg. CD is too ill to write a note, but will send [for] the specimen as soon as he can. [See 4326.]

Summary

CD agrees about reversion.

The discovery of crossing in cryptogams is very interesting.

Summary

CD is too ill to write.

As for natural selection, he is more faithful to PM’s "own original child" than PM is himself. To illustrate, CD relates the metaphor of an architect selecting well-shaped stones and rejecting ill-shaped ones. [See Variation 2: 431.]

Summary

CD too unwell to write but has signed the [unspecified] paper and forwarded it as requested.

Summary

Proposes to examine CD at Down.

Summary

CD thinks JS’s Primula paper is fit for publication; he will send it on to the Linnean Society.

Summary

Has been working with G. R. Crotch on stridulation. The sexual theory seems very shaky.

Is sending preparations of beetles.

Summary

Will observe old furrowed fields for CD in the early spring. Suggests locations in Scotland and Rugby with ridge and furrowing in old pastures.

Summary

CD is very unwell; will be unable to see RT.

Summary

Information [for CD] on old, sloping, ridged fields.

Summary

Encloses letters from two owners [W. Corbett and C. Randell] of large farms concerning fields with ridges and furrows in the direction of the slope. All local men agree the ridges do not change shape.

Summary

Describes voyage to New Zealand.

Summary

The occurrence and prevention of scale in boilers.

Anxious to hear Murray’s reply [to CD’s letter 9598].