Summary

Sends the very little globulin and haemoglobin he has to be tested with artificial gastric juice. He could get more from Samuel William Moore. Perhaps T. L. Brunton knows about the digestion of chlorophyll by animals.

Summary

Believes some flowers fail to produce seed because of the access of too great a quantity of pollen. Asks for CD’s opinion and references.

Summary

Seeks the assistance of a professional chemist in securing a qualitative analysis of the fluid secreted by the glands of Drosera which have the power of dissolving animal matter out of the bodies of insects. [See 8979.]

Summary

Is interested in comparative nutritive values of chondrin and gelatin. The former seems to excite Drosera more, though albumen does so to a higher degree than either. Also asks if chlorophyll is digested by animals; Drosera digests it hardly at all.

Summary

Discusses expression among the Chinese. Reports certain physical characters and the practice of certain unusual customs.

Summary

Has got a cold, so will not go to Kew. Wrote to Hartnack about price of microscopes and describes own model. Told Hooker about Tisley Spiller’s microscope in Paris.

Summary

Very pleased at JSBS’s discovery ["On the electrical phenomena which accompany the contractions of the leaf of Dionaea muscipula", Rep. BAAS 43 (1873): 133].

Asks for pure animal substances [proteins] for Drosera experiments. His other sources have been T. L. Brunton, Edward Frankland, W. A. Miller (now dead), and Hoffmann of Berlin [A. W. von Hofmann?].

Summary

Requests litmus paper and gum.

Summary

Discusses variation and selection in Harz canaries.

Summary

Thanks for strange debate, which CD returns. Principle of evolution has first-rate supporters in [Edward Sylvester?] Morse and Theodore Nicholas Gill.

Summary

On EH’s Die Kalkschwämme [1872].

Summary

Finds the negative information sent by EF of great interest [see 9094].

More on his own experiments and the perplexing results when using the sensitive litmus paper.

Summary

Sends a note on R. Caspary’s observations of Corydalis self-fertilisation [see Cross and self-fertilisation, p. 331].

Has begun his experiments on the self- and cross-fertilised flowers.

Summary

The Naples Zoological Station and its library are growing fast. His life is a constant battle with the municipality, but has managed to make a little progress on vertebrate ancestry and morphology. His views get further away from what is generally accepted.

Summary

Comments about questionnaire CD completed for FG [for Galton’s English men of science (1874)].

Describes his early interest in collecting and his education.

Asks about determining the mean heights of two groups of men.

Summary

Requests permission to call upon EF either Friday or Saturday morning [14 or 15 November].

Summary

Wishes JSBS to look over an abstract of his Drosera experiments and to answer some questions on it.

Summary

"The following fact with respect to the habits of ants, which I believe to be quite new, has been sent to me by a distinguished geologist, Mr J. D. Hague [see 8788]; and it appears well worth publishing."

Summary

Pleased that JC-B will review Expression.

Fears he will not be able to improve the book with JC-B’s "wonderfully curious" photographs because Murray printed such a large edition.

Would be glad to have JC-B’s notes on inheritance – "a most important subject".

Summary

Sends a letter from J. D. Hague confirming his earlier observation [see 8788] of frightened behaviour of ants when they come upon dead ants. CD had asked for confirmation because J. T. Moggridge had suggested that the ants’ behaviour was alarm at the scent of the observer’s fingers.