Summary

Comments on enclosed letters from Asa Gray and Wallace [missing].

Discusses hybrid fertility in rabbits and hares, and pheasants and fowls.

Asks about paper by Hermann Schaaffhausen ["Über Beständigkeit u. Umwandlung der Arten", Verh. Naturhist. Ver. Preuss. Rheinlande 10 (1853): 420–51].

Mentions criticism by Sedgwick and William Clark at Cambridge Philosophical Society.

Notes importance of CL and Hooker in defending Origin.

Comments on papers by D. A. Godron ["Considérations sur les migrations des végétaux", Acad. Stanislas Mem. Soc. Sci. Nancy (1853): 329–67].

Mentions receiving anonymous verses.

A Manchester newspaper lampoon shows CD has proved "might makes right" to be a universal law.

Summary

Returns reviews of Origin.

F. J. Pictet [Arch. Sci. Phys. & Nat. n.s. 7 (1860): 231–55] goes further than he himself realises.

Naturalists will resist CD’s views until faith in certain "impassable" barriers between existent species is shaken.

Gives CD an instance of convergence.

Summary

Praises CL’s work on human species.

A critical review of Origin in Saturday Review [24 Dec 1859].

A letter from J. G. Jeffreys criticises CD’s geological statements.

A note from William Whewell concerning Origin.

Summary

Glad to hear of MTM’s papers [? "On a peloria and semidouble flower of Ophrys aranifera, Huds.", J. Linn. Soc. Lond. (Bot.) 8 (1865): 207–11 and "Observations on the morphology and anatomy of the genus Restio, Linn.", J. Linn. Soc. Lond. (Bot.) 8 (1865): 211–55].

CD doubts the value, for origin of species, of parallels between peloria in "distinct groups".

Gärtner proved the stigma can select its own pollen from a mixture of foreign pollens. But much evidence shows varieties of same species are prepotent over a plant’s own pollen.

MTM’s father [William] believes that variation goes on for a long time once it has commenced.

Summary

Has been ill with pleurisy.

Sends more corrections and additions for American edition of Origin.

Summary

Henry Fawcett’s article on Origin [Macmillan’s Mag. 3 (1860): 81–92] quotes JDH’s Oxford speech.

Summary

Comments on QdeB’s [Études sur les maladies actuelles du ver à soie (1860)].

Has failed to find French publisher for Origin.

Summary

His results with pure gum on Drosera spathulata entirely support CD’s opinion. Other observations on insectivorous plants.

Summary

Extracts from botanical literature dealing with Dionaea, intercrossing, and sensitivity. [Bot. Ztg. (1833): 96; Thomas Nuttall, Genera of N. American plants (1818)].

Summary

Harvey’s letter to JDH more accepting of natural selection than CD expected.

Battle over Origin is raging in the United States.

Weary of hostile reviews.

Doubts about going to Oxford [for BAAS meeting].

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

Orders one copy of the issue of the Atlantic Monthly for last August (but not worth sending to America for) and two copies of the issue for next October.

Summary

Thanks THH for his lecture ["On the study of zoology", Lay sermons, addresses and reviews (1870), pp. 104–31]. Best exposé and classification of the higher objects of natural history he has ever read. On reading and observation.

Henrietta’s lack of improvement.

R. McDonnell’s work on rays and electric organs of fishes.

Summary

Has arranged with Baily the poulterer for pigeons for THH to exhibit at Royal Institution lecture.

E. A. Darwin will subscribe to H. Spencer’s book [First principles: a system of philosophy (1862)].

Summary

Thanks PLS for list of Galapagos birds.

Mentions note he will add to Journal [of researches (1860)]

and correction he will make in Origin [3d ed. (1861)].

Asks PLS about variability in "abnormal parts of birds".

Summary

Discusses the direction of WED’s studies.

Tells of the response to the Origin and the impact that it has made in England and abroad.

Summary

Reports on the snakes he collected in the Galapagos.

Summary

Response to [3020]. CD has been misled by errors made in the Times notice [5 Dec 1860, p. 5]. GCW does not doubt that Foraminiferous matter as well as other deep sea deposits vary greatly in thickness, but positive results are difficult to establish. Some areas of the sea bed are bare but their extent has not been established. He now thinks that he was too hasty in the conclusion that deep currents produce abrasion and rounding of gravel.