Summary

Surprised at CD’s account of Bryanthus.

H. Crüger’s approach to Gongora fertilisation is beset with difficulties.

Reports his work on self-sterility of Oncidium.

Summary

John Scott’s career.

Huxley’s vicious attack on anthropologists.

Critique of Joseph Prestwich’s theory of rivers.

Bitter feelings between the Hookers and the Veitch family of nurserymen.

Summary

Sends CD a copy of her book [Botany for novices (1864?)], intended to encourage the young, especially ladies, to study nature.

Summary

References to and résumés of articles on climbing plants.

Summary

JDH explains why he cannot take Scott on at Kew.

John Tyndall cannot answer CD’s questions on glaciers. Edward Frankland’s ignorance. In JDH’s opinion, heaviness of winter snowfall is the greatest element in size of glaciers and this is a function of low mean temperature. Discusses descent of glaciers.

Summary

Marvels that seeds from the lump of clay on the partridge’s foot have germinated. At Zoological Society [J. E.?] Gray ridiculed him. Now Frank Buckland would like to see the specimen.

Summary

JDH has written to J. H. Balfour for a character reference for John Scott.

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

Asks how he can identify pollen-tubes.

Has succeeded in impregnating orchids of widely different genera with each other’s pollinia. "Is not this something new?"

Offers to exchange Catasetum for other varieties.

Summary

J. H. Balfour gives Scott excellent character reference, but says he is unfit either to superintend or be subordinate.

Herbert Spencer’s review of J. M. Schleiden is interesting [see 4457].

Summary

Calculates the relationship between grains and milligrams; asks his mother for a fruit tart and twelve napkins.

Summary

CD need not worry about having discarded the partridge’s foot.

Summary

Men of Scott’s Celtic temperament are very troublesome. Tries to dissuade CD from hiring him as a scientific gardener.

George Rolleston, not Spencer, wrote review of Schleiden [Nat. Hist. Rev. (1864): 187–99].

Summary

Lyell thinks an expedition should be sent to the caves in Borneo, supported by the sale of surplus specimens; thinks "our progenitors" may well be there.

Summary

Observations on [length of style and length of filament and stigmas of] Pulmonaria.

Summary

Thanks for CD’s consoling letter. His mind cannot concentrate after losing his position, and he feels "an inward dread of life’s future". Would have been glad to work for CD. Understands why Hooker cannot recommend him.

Summary

No doubt that Owen wrote "Oken" and the archetype book, which appeared in its second edition in French.

Pressures of work and family.

Summary

CD is right about variability [of Pulmonaria]. Encloses observations and diagrams of additional plants.

Summary

Again refuses to help Scott as "unfitted" to make his way in the world. Scott is unwilling to take his part in the "struggle for life", unlike Tyndall, Faraday, Huxley, and Lindley, who established themselves. Scott’s work is not science, but "scientific horticulture".

Summary

JDH on John Scott.

Curious about the rationale of pollen prepotence.

Working on variation in New Zealand flora.