My dear Huxley

I am infinitely obliged for your note with Siebolds most wonderful facts, which stretch one’s faith to the utmost in that admirable observer.—² Males always coming from unimpregnated eggs beats everything one ever heard!—³ I will send your letter to Lubbock.—⁴ Now that I hear of vitality of spermatozoa, I begin to think a few must have got into the ovarium of L^d. Moreton’s Mare.—⁵ But incidentally I am extremely curious about hybridising of Bees; for as you speak about “pure races”; it seems to imply that there are varieties of the Domestic Bee, about which I feel an especial interest; for Bees offer in one respect by far my greatest theoretical difficulty.⁶

I am delighted to hear of your work on Crustacea, on the gland of antennæ.⁷ The conviction of an author, who has published goes for nothing; but from the many specimens which I have dissected, I cannot get it out of my head that the cement receptacle, as called by me, is continuous with & opens into the ovarian tubes; but that at the earliest age, before the ovarian tubes are developed, the cement-duct leads to those glands, which I formerly called the “true ovaria”.⁸ Before you publish I do so wish you could get a good specimen of Otion (= Conchoderma aurita) for in this the cement receptacles are visible within the sack,⁹ on the sides low down & you could easily dissect the connection between cement-receptacle, & the ovarian tubes.— This would alone convince me of my error.¹⁰

I shall not be at Club,¹¹ for my wife has just been confined of our sixth Boy! Adios, I thank you heartily for your letter.

Ever yours | C. Darwin

Many thanks for your Lectures, which seem to me most valuable¹²

Sometime when you can spare Siebold’s Book for 2 or 3 weeks (for I am slow at German) I sh^d. very much like to borrow it— Will it not be translated?¹³

By Jove I can hardly believe it— Oh if neuters were agamic offspring, what a load it w^d. remove from me.—

If ever you stumble on reference to Hicks on Sexual organ in Flustra, let me have it.¹⁴