Summary

Lyell’s volume [Principles, 10th ed.] received.

"We must now keep him straight anent origin and development."

Some of Spencer’s new part is interesting but much is dull and ponderous.

Huxley’s Elementary physiology [1866].

Has finished his New Zealand manual [Handbook of New Zealand flora (1864–7)]. New Zealand flora [and past geological conditions] suggest islands were once connected.

Speculates on the total amount of living organised matter on the globe, and whether it varies.

Balfour Stewart on sunspots.

Summary

Orchids.

Lyell has written to JDH about coal-plants of Melville Island.

Has glanced at first edition of Principles and has no doubt that Lyell meant the whole globe was cooler when land was massed at poles. JDH doubts this.

Summary

CD has followed Lyell’s advice and avoided controversy over Origin but encourages BDW to attack S. H. Scudder and others who argue foolishly or misquote him.

Summary

Had Busks and Lyells to dinner.

Examines and criticises evidence for CD’s hypothesis that the glacial period was not one of universal cold. Physicists deny its possibility.

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

Has found Verlot.

His sister [Emily Catherine Langton] is dying [d. 2 Feb 1866].

His stomach still very bad. Writes one or two hours and reads a little.

JDH is a wretch to remind CD of his coal-plant prophecy.

Glad JDH will give Nottingham lecture.

Summary

A confounded cock ground the crimson seeds up so CD could not find them in its excrement. CD is puzzled by how seeds can be disseminated if merely ground up by birds. Perhaps like acorns from seeds accidentally dropped by birds?

A woodcock’s leg with dry clay clinging to it, from which CD has grown a microscopical rush.

Spencer would have been wonderful if he had trained himself to observe more.

On New Zealand flora and connection with Australia.

Difficulty of speculating about the amount of organic chemical change at different periods.

Summary

His reasons for rejecting Atlantis hypothesis connecting Madeira and Canary Islands.

Summary

Asks [Secretary] to list the proper titles of foreign societies of which he is an honorary member; he has mislaid diplomas.

Summary

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

Comments on EH’s account of Protogenes primordialis.

Summary

Admits that occasional transport is not a well-established hypothesis but believes it more probable than continental extension as an explanation for the stocking of islands.

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

Lyell has sent chapters [of 10th ed. of Principles] to JDH, who objects to CL’s ignoring the part vapour plays in affecting temperature of the globe.

Parliament will be asked to buy W. J. Hooker’s collection.

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

CL is aware that she is dying and so says her farewells.

Summary

Thanks for criticism of proofs of his paper [see 5117].

Not sure whether CD believes in reversion and would like a positive statement as this is the one point C. V. Naudin especially observed. Naudin offers his remarks on ovules as a matter to be proved ["Nouvelles recherches sur l’hybridité", Nouv. Arch. Mus. Hist. Nat. 1 (1865): 25–176].

Summary

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

Retarded fertilisation in certain orchids.

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

Asks CD whether he knows of a medicine to check vomiting – for a friend dying from starvation as a result.

Duke of Somerset is looking for two naturalists for survey ship to Korea and Strait of Magellan.

Summary

Invites GB and wife to luncheon.