Summary

The pamphlet of AG’s Origin reviews [Natural selection not inconsistent with natural theology (1861)]. CD will bear half the costs of publishing.

Will write to Huxley about Chauncey Wright’s review of Origin.

Summary

The best way to see cell movement in Drosera hair, is to cut off those lately inflected over a fly, sketch shape of red matter under high power, and repeat after one or two minutes.

Summary

Owen wants to be civil, and sneer behind CD’s back.

Those, like Rudolph Wagner, who want to go halfway on theory, are "booked to go further".

Anatomy of orchids.

Huxley says K. E. von Baer goes "a great way with me".

Summary

Comments on CL’s advice not to reply directly to reviews.

Describes work on his Drosera manuscript.

Work delayed on his "larger book" [Variation].

Comments at length on the evolutionary significance of Robert McDonnell’s investigations ["On an organ in the skate", Nat. Hist. Rev. (1861): 57–60].

Summary

Third edition of Origin will answer reviewers.

Drosera experiments detailed.

Hopes for W. H. Harvey’s conversion.

Summary

Has not yet read Huxley’s review of Origin in Westminster Review [Apr 1860].

F. J. Pictet has published an excellent review, though opposed to CD, in Bibliothèque Universelle de Genève [Mar 1860].

Summary

Comments on letter from Jeffries Wyman.

Discusses reprinting reviews by Asa Gray.

Mentions views of W. S. Symonds on the geological record.

Discusses descent of turtles and tortoises.

The universality of variation.

Notes only a few species leave modified descendants.

Discusses Apteryx.

Variation among pigeons.

Comments on fertility among hybrids.

Does not agree that he makes natural selection do too much work.

Summary

Has read sheets of AG’s third Atlantic Monthly article [Oct 1860] and praises it and AG’s other reviews and articles highly.

Is surprised at the inability of others to grasp the meaning of natural selection.

Has been testing the sensitivity of Drosera, which he finds remarkable.

Asks if AG will be able to make some observations on orchids for him.

Summary

Has reread AG’s third Atlantic Monthly article. It is admirable, but CD cannot go as far as AG on design.

Mentions other opinions and reviews of Origin.

Relates some experiments on Drosera showing its extreme sensitivity; requests some observations on orchids.

Summary

Origin reviews. Is annoyed at Richard Owen’s malignity [Edinburgh Rev. 111 (1860): 487–532].

Summary

Floral anatomy; pistil curvature and pistil movement. CD’s rule that bent pistils occur in "gangway" into nectaries.

The book JDH is planning, which he and CD discussed at Kew, should deal with plant reproduction.

Summary

He has sent the list of seeds to J. H. Hooker at Kew. There has been no agreement about a French edition [of Origin]. There is little chance of his being at the BAAS meeting at Oxford.

Summary

Sends Asa Gray’s review [of Origin]. Asks THH’s advice on getting it reprinted in England.

Hooker’s expedition to Syria.

Disgraceful review of Tyndall’s book in Athenæum.

Summary

Attacks [on Origin] are "hot and heavy". Adam Sedgwick and William Clark at Cambridge Philosophical Society opened a battery. J. S. Henslow defended in grand style.

Slow progress on bigger book.

Summary

Comments on corrections [in Origin, 2d ed. (1860)], especially on use of Wallace’s name.

Discusses human evolution with respect to CL’s work. Cites expression as a source of evidence.

Andrew Murray’s criticisms of the Origin involving blind insects in caves [Edinburgh New Philos. J. n.s. 11 (1860): 141–51].

Humorously describes human ancestors.

Summary

Comments on W. H. Harvey’s article on a monstrous Begonia [Gard. Chron. 18 Feb 1860].

Is astonished at being attacked for not allowing great and abrupt variations under nature. More evidence needed to make CD admit that forms have often changed "by saltum".

Summary

On the Fraser’s Magazine review by Hopkins [see 2860] and the Quarterly Review article by Wilberforce ["Darwin’s Origin of species", 108 (1860): 225–64]. The course of opinion since Oxford BAAS meeting. Asa Gray.

Need for Natural History Review, but fears it will be a burden for THH and lessen his original work. His own problem with work: if he had other duties he would be able to do absolutely nothing in science.

Summary

Comments on CL’s reaction to the Origin. Mentions reactions of other scientists.

Discusses fertility of Aspicarpa.

Criticises Herbert Spencer’s views on population.

Summary

Discusses pamphlet by A. S. Taylor

and note by A. W. v. Hofmann concerning iodine solution.

Summary

Much interested in MTM’s lecture at Royal Institution ["On the relation between the abnormal and normal formations in plants", Notes Proc. R. Inst. G. B. 3 (1860): 223–7].

Asks for information about crossing of varieties of peas. Describes his own experimental results: "the offspring out of the same pod, instead of being intermediate, was very nearly like the two pure parents; yet in one, there was a trace of the cross & the next generation showed still more plainly their mongrel origins".