Summary

Comments on CD’s health.

Discusses origin of life and differentiation of principal classes of plants and animals.

Discusses Generelle Morphologie and its chapter on embryological development.

His lectures on CD’s theory.

Asks CD for larger portrait of himself and for several copies of the small photograph. Will send photographs of German scientists in exchange.

Summary

Sends copies of photographs of himself. Asks for photographs of German naturalists.

Comments on EH’s account of Protogenes primordialis.

Summary

Sends proofs [of "On hybridization among plants", Pop. Sci. Rev. 5 (1866): 304–13].

Regrets delay in returning CD’s books.

Encourages CD to make "disparaging remarks".

Summary

Obliged for JW’s information on variability of size of bees’ cells. Hexagonal cells not always work of several insects. W. H. Miller found great variability in thickness of cell walls.

Summary

Thanks for 4th ed. of Origin.

What a basting CD gives "our mutual friend" [Owen].

Glad he argrees with THH on Jamaica affair [Gov. Eyre and the "rebellion"].

Summary

Asks readers to examine the flowers of Oxalis bowei to observe where the summits of the branching stigmas stand with respect to the two sets of anthers. In CD’s plants the stigmas stand beneath the lower anthers, but he believes two other forms exist: long-styled and mid-styled. Would be grateful for flowers of these types so he can fertilise them and obtain seed.

Summary

Sends flowers of buckthorn [Rhamnus catharticus] collected on Isle of Wight.

Summary

Sending his paper on tristyly in Oxalis.

Cannot attend botanical congress, where CD will be vice-president.

Summary

Discusses beauty of birds and butterflies.

Summary

Disposal of Susan’s effects. Legacies to CD’s children. EAD has taken the letters and papers and asked Henry [Parker] to forward the George Richmond pictures of CD and Emma.

Caroline looks "miserably ill".

Summary

Has made observations on bees’ cells. Their dimensions are not constant, nor do single bees make single cells; each one is a result of co-operation.

Summary

Describes the difficulties of crossing papilionaceous flowers. Believes the lack of success is a consequence of the need for early castration and successive applications of pollen on the stigma. Gives details of a method he has used to cross such flowers successfully.

Summary

Has read FM’s paper on sponges ["Über Darwinella aurea", Arch. Miskrosk. Anat. 1 (1865): 344–53] with interest.

Has also read FM’s work on the metamorphoses of Peneus [Ann. & Mag. Nat. Hist. 3d ser. 14 (1864): 104–15], an interesting and important embryological discovery.

CD regards Louis Agassiz’s opinions as valueless.

Summary

Returns proofs of GH’s paper ["On hybridization among plants", Pop. Sci. Rev. 5 (1866): 304–13] with his criticisms. Prefers that GH not state that CD has read the proofs.

Does C. V. Naudin really say that ovules (not seed) of hybrid Luffa and Cucumis are imperfect?

Summary

Has forwarded FH’s paper on Fumariaceae to horticultural congress. Comments on its findings.

Discusses forms of Oxalis.

Summary

Hooker’s lecture to BAAS ["Insular floras"] was capital,

but hears Wallace’s paper [Address to Anthropology Section, Rep. BAAS 36 (1866): 93–4] was best.

Pleased RS continues zealous work for natural history.

CD considers the report that N. American antelopes’ horns are intermediate between hollow and solid horns of ruminants to be one of the more curious facts he has lately heard of with respect to higher animals [C. A. Canfield, "On the habits of the prongbuck", Proc. Zool. Soc. Lond. (1866): 105–11].

Summary

Thanks for observations on dimorphic plants. Dimorphism prevalent in certain groups throughout the world.

Retarded fertilisation in certain orchids.

Summary

Left strict orders about Euryale seeds but "labour, difficulty and expense of getting anything done scientifically by practical men is untold".

The E. J. Eyre controversy [Jamaica uprising]. Odd that Huxley joins the "persecution fund". The principles involved are fiddlesticks.

Summary

Gives details of enclosed MS on cool period. Mentions Hooker’s opposed "axis of the earth" view. Causes of glacial period are beyond CD; "cannot believe change in land and water being more than a subsidiary agent".

Summary

Returns [Fritz?] Müller’s work [probably Für Darwin (1864)]. It is a remarkable memoir.