Summary

Response to Insectivorous plants. Surprised that CD did not discuss origin of the contrivances. Critics will interpret them as inexplicable by theory of natural selection.

Summary

Thanks for Climbing plants [2d ed.].

Is reading proofs [of Geographical distribution (1876)].

Summary

Comments on CD’s criticism of Geographical distribution.

Plans to sell his house.

Summary

Responds to CD’s comments and criticism of Geographical distribution.

Summary

Responds to CD’s new work [Cross and self-fertilisation]. Suggests results might have been more convincing if CD had measured weights instead of heights. The fact that infertile hybrids have not been produced means that the "one great objection" has not been got rid of: the physiological characteristic of species. Suggests an experiment to produce "sterile mongrels" which would remove objection.

Summary

Thanks for new edition of Orchids.

The remarkable papers of Mott on Ernst Haeckel ["On Haeckel’s history of creation", Proc. Lit. & Philos. Soc. Liverpool 31 (1876–7): 41–89].

The part played by carbon in geological changes.

Summary

Thanks CD for Forms of flowers.

Further objections to "voluntary" sexual selection. Believes that he can explain all the phenomena of sexual ornaments and colours by laws of development aided by simple natural selection.

Excited by Thomas Belt’s "oceanic glacier river-damming" hypothesis. The last paper, "Glacial period in the Southern Hemisphere" in the Quarterly Journal of Science is particularly fine.

Summary

Sexual selection, he thinks, must be left to others to settle. "Conscious" will be substituted for "voluntary" selection. Sound- and scent-producing organs attributed to "natural", not "conscious", selection.

Summary

Requests support for his appointment as Superintendent of Epping Forest.

Working on a book [Australasia. Stanford’s compendium of geography and travel, edited and extended by A. R. Wallace (1879)].

Summary

Thanks for CD’s support for [Epping Forest] appointment. Doubts about the proposed management.

Summary

Gratified by CD’s praise.

Describes plan of his new book [Island life (1880)].

Efforts to secure a post.

Summary

Indicates portions of Island life that will interest CD. Explanation of the geological climate is the foundation stone of the book.

Hooker’s approval of the theory of Australian and New Zealand floras.

Summary

Response to CD’s notes [on Island life]:

1. On relation of paucity of fossils to coldness of water;

2. Cessation of the glacial period;

3. Rate of deposit and geological time;

4. The importance of preoccupation (by plants) in relation to plants arriving later.

Charge of speculative explanations is just.

Defends plausibility of migration of plants from mountain to mountain.

Summary

Thanks for book [Movement in plants].

Summary

ARW’s view of migration of plants from mountain to mountain gains support from case described in Nature [23 (1880): 125–6] by J. G. Baker. Identical species of alpine plants found in African mountains and Madagascar.

Summary

Appreciation of CD’s efforts in recommending him for pension. Asks about proprieties of thanking Gladstone and the signers of the memorial.

Summary

Further information about the pension with particular thanks to CD for his role.

Summary

Enthusiasm for Henry George’s Progress and poverty. Considers it to rank with Adam Smith’s work. His own work on the land question [Land nationalisation (1882)].

Summary

Thanks for book [Earthworms]. Asks whether leaf-mould is not formed by decay as well as by the agency of worms.

Summary

Refers to CD’s letter of "May last". ARW’s views on order of succession of species are in accordance with CD’s.

Disappointed that his paper ["On the law which has regulated the introduction of new species", Ann. & Mag. Nat. Hist. 2d ser. 16 (1855): 184–96] elicited no discussion; now ARW is trying to prove it. Paper merely states the theory.

On black jaguars breeding inter se: ARW has never heard of a parti-coloured one.