Summary

List of close species taken from AG’s Manual of botany [1848].

Summary

Wishes to know whether differences in constitution (such as disease susceptibility) are related to differences in complexion. "Liability to such a disease as yellow fever would answer my question in the best possible way."

Summary

Self-fertilisation in Fumariaceae.

[CD note on bees’ visiting some members of Fumariaceae.]

Summary

Believes that, in Dicentra, Fumaria and Corydalis, flower structures are related directly to visits from bees. Flower stigmas generally are placed in the path of bees.

Has received paper from Wallace on natural selection; has sent abstract of his notions, with Wallace’s paper, to Linnean Society.

Summary

Species migration since the Pliocene. Effect of the glacial epoch. Present geographical distribution, especially similarities of mountain floras, explained by such migration; mountain summits as remnants of a once continuous flora and fauna.

Cross-fertilisation in Fumariaceae.

Summary

Discusses the variation of species in large and small genera.

Thanks AG for his list of close species.

Laments the slow progress he makes with his book [Natural selection].

Summary

Asks whether botanists tend to record varieties more carefully in large genera or small genera.

Wants information on the ranges of varieties of a species compared to the range of the species.

Summary

Death of Charles Waring Darwin [1856–8] from scarlet fever.

JDH’s and Lyell’s kindness [presumably about A. R. Wallace’s letter]. CD can provide a copy of his letter to Asa Gray [about CD’s species theory].

Summary

JDH wants papers at once. CD sends Wallace’s paper and CD’s abstract of his letter to Asa Gray. Sends [species] sketch of 1844 with JDH’s notes to assure JDH he had read it.

Summary

Communicate papers by CD and A. R. Wallace on "The Laws which affect the Production of Varieties, Races, and Species". Explain that CD and Wallace have, independently and unknown to each other, arrived at the same theory to account for the appearance and perpetuation of specific forms, and that neither has yet published, although CD first sketched his theory in 1839. Give their reasons for arranging the joint presentation.

Summary

Everything in Wallace’s sketch also appears in CD’s sketch of 1844. A year ago CD sent a short sketch of his views to Asa Gray. Can CD honourably publish his sketch now that Wallace has sent outline of his views? "I would far rather burn my whole book than that he or any man shd. think that I had behaved in a paltry spirit." Does not believe Wallace originated his views from anything CD wrote to him.

Summary

On papilionaceous flowers and CD’s theory that there are no eternal hermaphrodites. Connects this theory to absence of small-flowered legumes in New Zealand and the absence of small bees as pollinators.

Summary

JDH’s letter to Wallace perfect. CD’s feelings about priority. Without Lyell’s and JDH’s intervention CD would have given up all claims to Wallace. Now planning 30-page abstract for a journal.

Observations on floral structure

and slave-making ants.

Summary

Pleased with JDH’s reaction to MS on large and small genera.

Confident of soundness of principle of divergence.

CD experimenting on pollination mechanism of Leguminosae. Asks JDH to investigate Fumariaceae.

Summary

Notes views of Hooker and George Bentham on monotypic forms.

Has tabulated several floras and finds that large genera show preponderance in numbers of varieties. Now sees his results are quite worthless.

Summary

Believes that botanists tend to mark more varieties in large than in small genera, but notes that where many varieties of a species exist these varieties may well be passed over, whereas similar varieties of another species which are fewer in number may well be recorded.

Summary

Asa Gray’s criticism of Buckle and his comments on large and small genera.

CD suspects glacial epoch immensely long. Rates of organic change too variable to make them a good measure of geological time.

Bees’ cells are a difficulty for theory.

Summary

JDH cannot abide CD’s connection of wide-ranging species and "highness". Australian flora contradicts this in many ways.

Summary

Thanks LA for presentation copy of Contributions [to the natural history of the United States of America, vol. 1, pt 1: Essay on classification, and vol. 1, pt 2: North American Testudinata (1857)]. Flattered; CD sees there is much of highest interest to him.

Summary

Wide-ranging species more "improved" than relics in small areas because they exist in large numbers and thus are subject to intense competition.

His abstract is 330 folio pages long so far.