Summary

Thanks for copy of HS’s First principles [? 2d ed. (1867)].

Comments on HS’s Principles of biology [1864, 1867].

Summary

"Half an answer" to CD’s query on visit of Sphinx to Hedychium gardnerianum.

Business affairs and family ill health keep him busy.

G. J. Allman will succeed Bentham as President of Linnean Society. Busk has refused.

Huxley is well.

JDH has indoctrinated Sir Stafford Northcote with his merits.

Lyell frail.

Old J. E. Gray goes on publishing.

"Is not [Thomas] Belt splendid!"

Summary

Sends MS notes on intercrossing.

Describes different reactions of rabbits and guinea-pigs to stinging nettles.

Has made a number of grafts at Kew.

Encloses notes on natural selection; discussion of factors mitigating the swamping influence of intercrossing on incipient variations.

Summary

On ARW’s "crushing" review [Nature 6 (1872): 237–9] of C. R. Bree’s An exposition of fallacies in the hypothesis of Mr Darwin.

Comments on other reviews and exchanges.

Summary

Response to ARW’s "Creation by law", especially the Angraecum sesquipedale and the predicted Madagascar moth.

ARW’s argument on beauty strikes CD as good.

Wishes ARW had made more clear the assumption of the reviewer [in North Br. Rev.] that each variation is a strongly marked one.

The Duke of Argyll’s argument on beauty is not candid.

Summary

Accepts invitation.

Summary

Informs CD of his reply to Argyll and the North British Review criticisms [in "Creation by law", Q. J. Sci. 4 (1867): 471–88]. Cites "the predicted Madagascar moth" and Angraecum sesquipedale.

Birth of Herbert Spencer Wallace.

Summary

Offers enclosure demonstrating that natural selection could produce sterility of hybrids.

More on Pangenesis and the inadequacy of H. Spencer’s approach.

Summary

Has heard from B. J. Sulivan about the fossils at Gallegos, Patagonia. Would be a great haul for palaeontology if Duke of Somerset would encourage Capt. Mayne to collect them [on survey of Magellan Strait].

Tells JDH of a new map of world that he might use in his lecture [on "Insular floras", BAAS, 1866, J. Bot. Br. & Foreign 5 (1867): 23–31; Gard. Chron. (1867): 6, 27, 50, 75].

Impressed by H. Spencer’s last number, but each suggestion would require years of work to be of use to science.

Summary

Did not think JDH had written Murray review [see 5217].

Does not think Gardeners’ Chronicle best for publication of "Insular floras" [Gard. Chron. (1867): 6–7, 27, 50–1, 75–6].

T. Laxton’s article, on direct action of pollen of peas on seed and pod, a grand physiological fact and "delightful" for Pangenesis.

Interview with Herbert Spencer.

Summary

Responds to CD’s queries on polygamy in birds and orang.

Discusses sexual selection and secondary characters; colours and sexual preference.

Expresses his admiration for Pangenesis; it is superior to Herbert Spencer’s theory.

ARW differs somewhat with CD’s chapter on causes of variability [ch. 22 in Variation]. Thinks several of CD’s arguments are unsound.

Briefly discusses how natural selection might aid in producing sterility between allied species.

Summary

Thanks AdeC for his long letter full of interesting facts, which will be of great use if a new edition [of Variation] is demanded.

As for when CD will publish on variation in a state of nature: he has had the MS almost ready for several years but Variation fatigued him so much

that "I determined to amuse myself by publishing a short essay on the Descent of Man".

AdeC will have plenty of time to publish his views. Asks permission to quote AdeC on a case of inheritance of scalp-muscles [see Descent 1: 20].

Hooker has expressed a view, similar to AdeC’s, "that morals & politics would be very interesting if discussed like any branch of Natural History".

Agrees with AdeC on acclimatisation

and on graft-hybrids.

CD is repeating Hildebrand’s method in producing graft-hybrid potatoes.

As for Pangenesis, very few people approve of it though it has some enthusiastic friends and CD has much faith in its vitality.

Summary

Relieved that CD approves his declining the Presidency of BAAS. The BAAS and the role of scientific men in it.

Summary

Wishes he had known of the views of Hippocrates, which are almost identical to his Pangenesis hypothesis. CD advances it as provisional, but secretly expects some such view will have to be admitted.

Summary

A confounded cock ground the crimson seeds up so CD could not find them in its excrement. CD is puzzled by how seeds can be disseminated if merely ground up by birds. Perhaps like acorns from seeds accidentally dropped by birds?

A woodcock’s leg with dry clay clinging to it, from which CD has grown a microscopical rush.

Spencer would have been wonderful if he had trained himself to observe more.

On New Zealand flora and connection with Australia.

Difficulty of speculating about the amount of organic chemical change at different periods.

Summary

Could not believe Owen to be so demoniacal as to write the Athenæum review [of Variation].

Gardeners’ Chronicle review [see 5918] is weak. CD’s ideas on causes of variation may be as hazy as the reviewer’s.

Huxley’s clever remark on Pangenesis. JDH’s view of Pangenesis as fundamental to development doctrines, but nothing is gained by formulation in terms of germs or gemmules.

Tries to answer question on last page of CD’s letter anent sexuality.