Summary

Gives CD advice on the illness of one of his sons [presumably Horace].

Summary

Thanks for Orchids.

Summary

Family news; mostly an account of ill health.

Summary

About Quiz and [Horace Darwin’s] health.

Asks whether CD has tried W. B. Tegetmeier’s beehives.

Summary

Has heard of mules of canary and other finches breeding occasionally, but it is rare, and there is hardly one authenticated case of two such mules breeding together.

Sixteen of the household at Down are sick with influenza.

Summary

Louis Pasteur’s memoir "is a very able and convincing one" ["Mémoire sur les corpuscles organisés qui existent dans l’atmosphère", Ann. Sci. Nat. (Zool.) 3d ser. 16 (1861): 5–98].

Summary

Son [Leonard] ill with scarlet fever. Also Mrs Darwin.

Intends to give up work on Drosera until Variation is done.

Summary

Leonard has scarlet fever; CD is sorry WED is unwell.

Summary

Lighthearted thoughts on "the development of an Aristocracy" after a visit to Walcot Hall, Shropshire.

On CD’s point about the effect of changed conditions on the reproductive organs, JDH does not see why this is not "itself a variation, not necessarily induced by domestication, but accompanying some variety artificially selected".

Summary

Suggests that the height of the water which formed the shelves in Glen Roy was determined not by the height of the blocking glacier but by the height of a col. Notes problems in the idea.

Summary

Reports some observations on the fertilisation of wheat which WED might follow up.

Summary

Is pleased that AdeC is interested in the Primula case ["Dimorphic condition of Primula", Collected papers 2: 45–63]. Is pursuing analogous experiments on other plants and on seedlings raised from the unions.

CD’s "large work" progresses slowly owing to ill health and his work on Orchids.

CD is not surprised that AdeC is unwilling to admit natural selection – "the subject hardly admits of direct proof or evidence. It will be believed in only by those who think that it connects & partly explains several large classes of facts".

Hopes AdeC will publish on Quercus

and rejoices that he intends to return to the study of geographical distribution. No one can claim to have read AdeC’s truly great work on that subject [Géographie botanique (1855)] with more care than CD.

Summary

Sorry to hear of Mrs Hooker’s health and domestic problems. Wishes natural selection had produced neuters who would not flirt or marry.

Will be eager to hear Cameroon results.

Wishes JDH would discuss the "mundane glacial period". Still believes it will be "the turning point of all recent geographical distribution".

Pollen placed for 65 hours on apparent (CD still thinks real) stigma of Leschenaultia has not protruded a vestige of a tube.

"Oliver the omniscient" has produced an article in Botanische Zeitung with accurate account of all CD saw in Viola.

Asa Gray’s "red-hot" praise of Orchids [Am. J. Sci. 2d ser. 34 (1862): 138–51].

Summary

Hopes to visit CD with Mellersh and Wickham the week after next.

Summary

On effect of external conditions: CD thinks all variability due to changes in conditions of life because there is more variability under unnatural domestic conditions than under nature, and changed conditions affect the reproductive organs. But why one seedling out of thousands presents some new character transcends the wildest powers of conjecture.

Not shaken by "saltus" – he had examined all cases of normal structure resembling monstrosities which appear per saltum. Has fought his tendency to attribute too much to natural selection; perhaps he has too much conquered it.

Summary

Invites CD and Emma to dine.

Summary

Family and local news.

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Discusses his new microscope.

Summary

Last chapter of Orchids opens up a "knotty sort of question about accident or design".

Changes in orchid flowers as they age.

Thinks CD may find trimorphism in Nesaea verticillata.

Summary

Recommends H. W. Bates’s paper on butterflies of Amazonia ["Insect fauna of the Amazon valley", Trans. Linn. Soc. Lond. 23 (1862): 495–566].

Lyell’s book [Antiquity of man (1863)] is eagerly awaited.