Summary

Thanks JDH for extract on Hedychium pollination; it shows CD’s prior interpretation was incorrect.

Summary

Advice to GHD on whether to accept invitation to lecture at the Royal Institution.

Murray has sent the Quarterly Review issue. CD has told Murray that he is convinced Mivart is the author and what he thinks of him.

Summary

CD responds [to 9667] with description of his own effort to study Aldrovanda and his observations on the structure of Dionaea.

His admiration for FJC’s earlier studies of the Venus’s fly-trap.

He urges FJC to proceed promptly with publication of his memoir on Aldrovanda [Beiträge zur Biologie der Pflanzen 1, Heft 3 (1875): 71–92].

Summary

Discusses the powers of digestion of Drosera and why certain substances produce less excitement in the plant than others.

Summary

Thanks for CD’s favourable opinion of his book [Les fourmis de la Suisse (1874)]. Habits of ants; observations on their carrying empty eggs.

Summary

Asks JDH for leaves of Byblis and Roridula to examine, and D. Oliver for an anomalous species of Utricularia.

Summary

Thanks for a paper on the reproductive organs of fish.

Has always admired AWM’s work on the Pleuronectidae (Bidrag till kännedom af Pleuronektoidernas utveckling och byggnad (Contribution to knowledge of the development and structure of the Pleuronectidae); Malm 1867).

Summary

GHD explains conduction, radiation, and convection.

His paper on political economy for Royal Institution lecture has reached 60 pages. Plans to send it to Contemporary Review.

Summary

Suggests an explanation for difference in excitability of Drosera leaves to meat and albumen on the one hand and, on the other, fibrin, areolar tissue, gelatin, and fibrous basis of bone.

Summary

Sends specimens of Byblis, Roridula, and Utricularia for CD’s examination.

Summary

Forwards a photograph he thought had been lost. Has noticed that the two sides of the face are often asymmetric in portrait busts and statues.

Summary

Will soon send remaining sheets [of Descent, 2d English ed.]. Fears JVC’s errata have come too late for printing.

His new work [Insectivorous plants] will make a rather big book.

Summary

Thanks GHD for clear lecture on heat.

Will keep paper on proportion of sexes, in case GHD wants it again.

Wants him to translate some pages of Swedish or Norwegian sent by A. W. Malm, "a good man".

Glad to see the statistical paper ["Theory of exchange value", Fortn. Rev. n.s. 17 (1875): 243–53].

Summary

Doubts whether sudden and great variations often occur.

Comments on colours of flowers.

Summary

Thanks CD for Descent, 2d ed.

Comments on German edition of CD’s collected works.

Sales of his Anthropogenie [1874] in various countries.

Anticlericalism and progress of Darwinism in Germany.

Summary

On German translation of Descent [3d German, 2d English ed.]. Lists some misprints in proofs.

Summary

Writes about instructions to compositor and return of proofs [of Descent]. Requests return of 2d volume of Descent, to which he may want to refer.

Summary

Returns insectivorous plants to Kew, with questions about their range. Most species seem to have remarkably confined ranges.

Asks for a Bengal Aldrovanda leaf so that he can see whether it differs from the German species.

Roridula interested him extremely.

Summary

Thanks WHMC and the Astronomer Royal for informing him of the safe arrival of the Merope [Leonard Darwin’s ship] at New Zealand. [See 9677.]

Summary

Thanks for Quarterly Review [Oct 1874, containing G. H. Darwin’s letter and a rejoinder]. Is convinced the author is Mivart. Is therefore not surprised at malice in the article attacking his son [George Darwin] and grossly misrepresenting CD.