Summary

Wants to keep "The origin of man" as first part of title of book.

Summary

CD sends a "curious drawing" [missing] relating to imitation and protection.

Summary

Hibiscus and Nolana seeds not harvested at Kew. Sends list of the best plants of Lilium he can give.

Asks CD for name of work on orchids mentioned in his supplementary paper ["Fertilization of orchids", Collected papers 2: 138–56].

Summary

Financial adjustments for last edition of Origin

and a tentative title for the new work: "Descent of man and selection according to sex". [Later changed to "in relation to sex".]

Summary

Sends copies of a mission magazine [missing] and discusses the missionaries’ work in S. America, especially that of Thomas Bridges and W. H. Stirling.

Summary

Thanks JDH for offer of lilies.

The paper on orchids is by Hermann Müller [Verh. Naturhist. Ver. Preuss. Rheinlande & Westphalens 25 (1868): 1–62], on Platanthera and Epipactis.

Cites another work by P. Rohrbach [Über den Blüthenbau (1866)].

MS [of Descent] ready for printer.

Has read Bentham’s last Linnean Society [Presidential] Address [Proc. Linn. Soc. Lond. (1870): lxxiv–xciv] with great interest.

Summary

Has found a remarkable anatomical character in the niata skull of which he wrote [see 5540]. Asks whether the skull CD brought from South America [at the Royal College of Surgeons] shows the same character. If so, it would provide incontestable evidence of the origin of this race of cattle.

Summary

Thanks BJS for a journal and an interesting letter.

Summary

On mutations in rabbits.

Cytisus case is not a double graft.

Aggressive behaviour of birds of prey.

Summary

Requests seeds of Nolana prostrata & Hibiscus Africanus, which have been matured in Germany or in the more Southern parts of Europe.

Summary

Encloses a query from Camille Dareste [see 7262] about the niata ox skull CD gave to the museum [of the Royal College of Surgeons].

Summary

Has CD read E. Claparède ["Remarques à propos de l’ouvrage de M. Alfred Russel Wallace sur la théorie de la sélection naturelle", Arch. Sci. Phys. & Nat. n.s. 38 (1870): 160–89]? Is it worth translating?

CD and J.-F. de Brandt are "en lutte for Ac. of Sc. [France]. What a farce it is".

His work on Nepenthes supports Miquel’s and Wallace’s view of the zoology of Borneo and Sumatra.

Brian Hodgson on dogs.

H. C. Bastian’s book [The modes of origin of lowest organisms (1871)] unsatisfactory.

Lyell does not share CD’s view of Bentham’s address.

Summary

Discusses applicability of evolutionary theory to the question of human origins.

Describes revisions in 2d edition of Natürliche Schöpfungsgeschichte.

His research on calcareous sponges.

Mentions evolutionary content in Gegenbaur’s Vergleichende Anatomie [2d ed. (1870)].

Summary

Thanks for the drawing.

E. Claparède’s review [of Theory of natural selection, Rev. Cours Sci. 7 (1870): 564–71] is weak.

Looks forward [to Descent] with fear of being "crushed under a mountain of facts!"

Summary

Sends CD information on two points which St George Mivart has asked him to provide, respecting the platysma myoides muscle. It is always in a state of violent contraction when a person is struggling for breath. In persons to whom chloroform is about to be administered, there is contraction but not so marked. No doubt contraction was strong before use of chloroform in operations.

Summary

Thinks well of Claparède’s criticism; worth publishing as an answer to Wallace. Bates thinks Wallace’s heterodox views have done mischief to the cause of evolution. Wallace thinks Claparède’s article very weak, CD concludes, because Claparède has arrived at an unpleasant judgment very much like Lyell’s about Bentham’s address.

CD would wager Lyell lately has said something about European Proteaceae.

Does not remember anyone before Wallace on Sumatra and Java.

CD does not think he has a chance against Brandt in French Academy election.

Summary

Sends seeds from R. L. Playfair in Algiers.

F. Delpino writes asking where M. A. Curtis has published physiological observations on Dionaea ["Enumeration of plants growing spontaneously around Wilmington, North Carolina", Boston J. Nat. Hist. 1 (1834–7): 82–140; see Insectivorous plants, p. 301 n.].

Talk with Duke of Argyll on CD’s and Wallace’s views on man.

Summary

Has not heard of Curtis on Dionaea.

Duke of Argyll is clever, but it is a sin to speak of a real old Duke as a "little beggar".

"My theology is a simple muddle: I cannot look at the Universe as the result of blind chance, yet I can see no evidence of beneficent Design."

On spontaneous generation and Bastian.

Summary

Sends a letter by Mr Teebay on variation in wild ducks.

Offers to lend Dr Cooper’s book on game fowls.

Is preparing a new edition [1873] of his Poultry book.

Summary

WBT may use any of CD’s material for the new edition of his poultry book. Hopes WBT will keep firmly to his idea of working out pigeon variation.