Summary

Has drawn all three forms of primroses CD sent "with same result". Has found no pink variety with middle style.

Summary

Galton agrees with GJR about rudimentary organs.

GJR’s note referred to possibility of selection acting on organic types as distinguished from individuals.

Thinks Grant Allen has not made out his point [in Physiological aesthetics (1877)], but his fundamental principle probably has much truth.

Summary

Congratulates CD on testimonials from the savants of Germany and the Netherlands [Nature 15 (1877): 356, 410–12] and generally on his contributions to biology.

Asks if and when CD’s "Variability of organic beings in a state of nature", as projected in 1868 [see Variation 1: 4] is to appear.

Summary

Sends fresh plants from France: Lythrum graefferi, Romulea.

Does CD know Pulmonaria is dimorphic?

Summary

Thanks for orchids.

Recovering from nine months’ illness.

Discusses fertilisation of Pulmonaria.

Summary

Interested to hear about the peas.

Summary

Believes Lythrum is trimorphic. Asks AG for seeds of plants he suspects are polymorphic.

Summary

Thanks CTEvS for photographs of human abnormality;

regrets death of Rudolf von Willemoes-Suhm.

Summary

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

Summary

Thanks FD for corrections [to Orchids (1877)].

Thinks Johann von Fischer’s paper on monkeys’ rumps [Der Zoologische Garten 17 (1876): 116–27, 174–9] worth translating, and he intends to write a letter on it to Nature [Collected papers 2: 207–11].

Summary

Thanks for errata in Insectivorous plants.

Sends spare copies of his papers, but thinks several are not worth publishing.

Has only one copy, which he will lend JVC, of the best one, on "Erratic boulders of South America" [Collected papers 1: 145–63].

Has not sent "Parallel roads of Glen Roy" [Collected papers 1: 87–137], as he is sure he was wrong.

Summary

New [3d] German edition of Descent will soon be out.

Will begin translating Journal of researches, which will be first volume of CD’s collected works.

JVC has proposed bringing out all CD’s botanical papers in one or two volumes.

Errata in Descent enclosed.

Summary

Thanks JVC for errata [in Descent, 2d ed.].

Discusses work in progress and publication plans.

Will be pleased to receive concluding volume of JVC’s Zoologie [see 8531].

Summary

Sends drawings of the pollen from Chinese Primula plants with styles and pistils of different lengths; observations on sizes and condition of their pollen.

Summary

FD has sent proofs; nutating of Ricinus; Horace Darwin and the wormograph.

Summary

CD does not think he could be wrong about the stigma of Bolbophyllum.

Will not write up Drosera for years.

Praises JS’s experiments. Invites him to send a paper to Linnean Society.

L. C. Treviranus says all species of Primula present two forms except P. longiflora.

Summary

Discusses three "laws of race preservation" which are evolving: (1) natural selection; (2) the sociological law of sympathetic selection, or indiscriminate survival; (3) moral law – social selection or the "Birth of the Fittest".

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

His research on Orchis maculata.

Discusses effect of disuse of anthers in Salvia officinalis.

Pleased CD can use his observations on Primula elatior.

Summary

Thanks JP for congratulations on LL.D. [awarded by Cambridge University].

Comments on Rudolf Virchow’s book [Die Freiheit der Wissenschaft im modernen Staat (1877)].