Summary

CD’s opinion of minor critics and commentators on Origin.

H. C. Watson’s notion of genera converging is dismissed.

Summary

Quotes passage from letter from Asa Gray dealing with views of Francis Bowen on heredity and Agassiz "(foolish man)" on heredity and languages.

Sent CL the Calcutta Review [with Edward Blyth’s review of Origin, 35 (1860): 64–88].

Summary

AG’s review of John Phillips’ book [Life on earth (1860), in Am. J. Sci. 2d ser. 31 (1861): 444–9].

Thinks his experiments will explain Primula dimorphism.

Insect fertilisation of orchids.

Wishes that the "greatest curse on Earth", slavery, were abolished.

Summary

Elaborates on his article ["A popular exposition of Mr Darwin on the origin of species", Macmillan’s Mag. 3 (1860): 81–92]. Was anxious to point out that CD’s method of investigation is philosophically correct. Asks permission to call.

Summary

"You could not possibly have told me anything which would have given me more satisfaction than what you say about Mr. Mill’s opinion." [See 2868.]

Summary

Praise for DO’s paper on Hamamelidaceae ["On Sycopis", Trans. Linn. Soc. Lond. 23 (1862): 83–9, read 15 Mar 1860]. Everything points to its being a "bankrupt" family.

Hydropathy at Malvern may take him from Drosera. Requests Dionaea and Cypripedium.

Summary

CD is not surprised at CC’s entire rejection of his views. Agrees that there is no direct proof of unlimited variation. Says natural selection should be viewed as comparable to wave theory of light: it is probable because it groups and explains a host of facts in several fields of science.

Agrees Louis Agassiz’s review [Am. J. Sci. 2d ser. 30 (1860): 142–55] is not unfair, but Agassiz misunderstands CD. His "categories of thought" are to CD merely empty words.

Summary

Comments on the travels of JDH.

Genera plantarum a most worthy undertaking.

Criticisms of the Darwin–Hooker understanding of HCW’s views of convergence.

Summary

Thanks Mr Beaton for his answer [to 3147].

Asks further questions on points raised in Beaton’s previous papers: whether crossing white and blue varieties of Anemone apennina produced many pale shades; whether the Mathiola incana and M. glabra which crossed freely were artificially or naturally crossed.

CD is delighted by Beaton’s assertion that "not a flower in a thousand is fertilised by its own immediate pollen".

Recounts his experiments with Leschenaultia formosa to show insect fertilisation.

Summary

Is glad AG will publish [pamphlet of his reviews of Origin]. Insists on bearing the costs. Encloses list of institutions and individuals to whom he would send copies.

Summary

Distribution of AG’s pamphlet.

Insectivorous plants.

Informs AG of his [CD’s] notice on Pumilio in Gardeners’ Chronicle [5 Jan 1861; Collected papers 2: 36–8].

Summary

H. W. Bates’s excellent article against glacial period [Trans. R. Entomol. Soc. Lond. 5 (1860): 352–3] leaves CD "dumbfounded".

H. C. Watson’s hostility.

Summary

Thanks for correspondent’s Untersuchungen [? Über das Klima und die Vegetationsverhältnisse des Tertiärlandes (1860)]. CD has always considered subject interesting and important.

Summary

A bee’s sting always remains behind.

Summary

Physiological changes in Shetland ponies and seagulls resulting from change in diet.

Reports on the discovery of eyeless beetles in cellar [i.e., not caves]. How did they get there, and whence?

Summary

Describes how adhesive bladders enable the achenia of Pumilio argyrolepsis to attach themselves to the soil. James Drummond sent seeds to CD with a memorandum on the achenia.

Summary

Huxley and CD fear Chauncey Wright’s review is too general.

Reports the praise for AG’s pamphlet.

J. S. Henslow is dying.

Francis Bowen strikes CD as weak and unobservant; presumes he is a metaphysician, which accounts for his "entire want of common sense".

Does wild Apocynum catch flies in U. S.?

Summary

Changes in admission to Athenaeum.

Slowly working at his volume on Variation.

Experiments on insectivorous and "sensitive" plants.

Summary

Sends two letters from G. Lincecum about ants ("perhaps the most marvellous instinct ever recorded") for possible publication. [See Gideon Lincecum, "The habits of the ""agricultural ants"" of Texas", J. Proc. Linn. Soc. Lond. (Zool.) 6 (1862): 29–31.]