Summary

Bee species of different sizes build cells the same size.

Summary

Grateful for CD’s commendation of his Glen Roy paper ["Parallel roads of Glen Roy", Q. J. Geol. Soc. Lond. 19 (1863): 235–59].

Reading Justus Liebig [trans. William Gregory, Animal chemistry or organic chemistry (1842)] has suggested that pattern of evolutionary succession might depend on differential need for soil minerals.

Summary

On Wedgwood vases for JDH.

Willy Hooker’s scarlet fever.

Summary

Received JDD’s book [Manual of geology (1862)]

and pamphlet on man ["On the higher subdivisions in the classification of mammals", Am. J. Sci. 2d ser. 35 (1863): 65–71].

Fully admits JDD’s objections are valid. But is convinced of the general truth of his own views (with much incidental error), because they embrace so many phenomena and explain them.

Discusses some mistakes Owen has made;

Falconer’s disagreement with Owen ["On the mammalian genus Plagiaulax", Q. J. Geol. Soc. Lond. 18 (1862): 348–69].

Summary

Indignant over Owen’s conduct as described in Hugh Falconer’s article on elephants ["On the American fossil elephant of the regions bordering the Gulf of Mexico", Nat. Hist. Rev. (1863): 43–114].

Summary

Jaw with teeth found associated with Archaeopteryx fossil. Waterhouse pronounces it a fish’s jaw.

Summary

On six-fingered men: suspects increase confined to metacarpals and digits. Has asked James Paget to look it up.

Summary

Sends photos of the niata ox skull presented by CD.

Summary

Asks WHF to obtain photographs of skull of ox for J. L. A. Quatrefages de Bréau.

Summary

Admits, at last, that New Zealand must have been connected to some continent, but not Australia.

Climbing plants: asks for more plants.

Summary

His better opinion [of work of Boucher de Perthes].

Explains his position on CL’s treatment of species.

Mentions positive response to his ideas on the part of a German professor [Ernst Haeckel], Alphonse de Candolle, and a botanical palaeontologist [Gaston de Saporta].

Notes negative reaction of entomologists.

Mentions Falconer’s objections [to Antiquity].

Mentions work of Hooker.

Comments on paper by Owen ["On the aye-aye", Rep. BAAS 32 (1862) pt 2: 114–16]

and CD’s review of Bates’s paper [Collected papers 2: 87–92].

Thinks Natural History Review is excellent.

Summary

Continues to support, in debates at the Société d’Anthropologie, the view that variability of animals and anatomical modifications are produced by environment. Wishes to use CD’s niata cattle example from Journal of researches [2d ed., pp. 145–6].

Summary

Attacks by Falconer [Athenæum 4 Apr 1863, pp. 459–60] and Joseph Prestwich on Lyell.

W. B. Carpenter fails to attack Owen.

Welwitschia male cones with useless ovules marvellous example of lost function and retained structure.

JDH evaluates his sons.