Summary

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

Comments on EH’s account of Protogenes primordialis.

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

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

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

Thanks CD for previous communications. Asks him to send a paper relating to flowers to be read at first meeting of her ladies’ literary and scientific society.

Summary

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

Discusses forms of Oxalis.

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

Discusses exchange of photographs with German scientists.

Comments on attitudes of German scientists toward CD’s theory.

Names several scientists who exchanged photographs: Braun, Virchow, Leydig, and Dohrn.

Summary

Comments on JDH’s list – very good, but Orchids and Primula paper have too indirect a bearing to be worth mentioning. The Eozoon is a very important fact and to a much lesser degree the Archaeopteryx. Müller’s Für Darwin [1864] perhaps the most important contribution.

CD has forgotten to mention Bates on variation and JDH’s Arctic paper ["Distribution of Arctic plants", Trans. Linn. Soc. Lond. 23 (1862): 251–348] in new edition of Origin.

Now finds that Owen claims to be originator of natural selection.

Summary

Refers to enclosure from Asa Gray

with whom he can talk calmly now that war is over. North had no right to resort to bloodshed.

Startled by CD’s attendance at Royal Society soirée.

Has asked E. B. Tylor to make up questions for consuls and missionaries, through whose wives a lot of most curious information [for Descent?] could be obtained.

Tying umbilical cord has always been a mystery to JDH.

John Crawfurd’s paper on cultivated plants is shocking twaddle ["On the migration of cultivated plants in reference to ethnology", J. Bot. Br. & Foreign 4 (1866): 317–32].

R. T. Lowe back from Madeira.

Summary

Fertilisation in orchids: Friedrich Hildebrand’s paper.

Self-sterility.

Climbing plants.

Agassiz’s attempts to eliminate all Darwinian views.

Summary

Thanks CD for photograph.

JvH will send his notes on origin of species;

he is now writing a paper on glacier period of the New Zealand west coast, and his account of the highly glaciated headwater region of the Rakaia River is being printed.

Summary

Sends CD comb of the Chinese honey-bee, as requested.

Summary

Thanks CD for invitation. Solicitous of CD’s health. Will let Hooker decide whether CD’s health will allow his visit.

[Alexander] Braun in poor health.

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

W. H. Harvey is dead. His loss to science.

Will get a copy of Crawfurd’s paper. It was such trash he tore his up.

His letter to Asa Gray was about his [JDH’s] proof that America will have an aristocracy from interbreeding of wealth, intellect, and beauty; and the lower classes, not having time for politics, will leave them to the aforementioned.

Summary

Will be sure to send the Cytisus and Laburnum blooms when they flower.

Summary

Is sending some plants and seeds to JDH.

Thanks Mrs Hooker for telling him of a life of his grandfather [Erasmus Darwin] of which he had not heard.

Summary

Reference to description of Begonia phyllomaniaca.

Thanks for the explicit account of Pangenesis. Thinks he now follows CD’s ideas but Pangenesis is very difficult and speculative.

Oliver has lost his little girl.

Summary

Appleton’s will not print a new edition of Origin.

AG has read sheets of new English edition [4th] and is much pleased by the passage on Richard Owen in the historical sketch.