Summary

An extract from Macrobius’ Saturnalia dealing with blushing.

Summary

Sends £600 bequeathed by Susan Darwin to CD’s younger children.

Summary

He has promised Mark [coachman to R. W. Darwin and Susan] that CD will continue the payment of £20 a year after EAD’s death; the house is rent free.

Summary

Left his box of plants in dog-cart [on his visit to Down].

Summary

Will introduce Charles Kingsley to CD.

Summary

Hopes to get afternoon train from Victoria.

Woolner comes on Sunday morning.

Summary

Has asked a classics scholar about a word for Pangenesis. He suggests "atomogenesis".

Is getting in rather a fright about the coming exams.

Summary

Recommends a tutor for CD’s son.

Summary

Returns Hooker’s paper [unidentified].

Summary

Thanks for German version of Origin [1867].

Dipterous insects are adapted to eating pollen rather than only to sucking nectar. He describes such adaptations in two dipteran species.

Summary

Returns R. G. Haliburton’s paper ["The unity of the human race proved by the universality of certain superstitions connected with sneezing", reprinted in New materials for the history of man (1863)] and sends one of his own partly in answer to it ["The early condition of man", Anthropol. Rev. 6 (1868): 1–14].

Capital BAAS meeting at Dundee.

Summary

Agrees to publish German edition of Variation.

Discusses publication of third German ed. of Origin.

Thanks CD for portrait.

Summary

Will not be inclined to challenge Pangenesis.

Admits CD’s victory over JDH’s continental hypothesis (but will not give up Greenland).

Relation of variation to circumstances is shown by discovery of endemic St Helena umbellifer having same palm-like habit as an endemic Madeiran species.

Has completed Boott’s Carices [Illustrations of the genus Carex, pt 4 (1867)],

is printing W. H. Harvey’s work [Genera of South African plants, 2d ed. (1868)],

and is revising English edition of Alphonse de Candolle’s Laws of botanical nomenclature [trans. H. A. Weddell (1868)].

Arrangements at Kew. Gardener [John Smith] is very ill; Oliver reigns supreme in the Herbarium.

Summary

Proposes writing a note for Linnean Society ["Note on the structure of Genista tinctoria", J. Proc. Linn. Soc. Lond. (Bot.) 10 (1869): 468], in part using information CD gave him at Down.

Summary

The horns and spines of homopterous insects do not vary between sexes. Sexual differences in Blattidae.

Summary

Jessie [Wedgwood] says driving in sun made one of her eyes water.

Summary

Thanks CD for new edition of Origin [4th ed. (1866)].

Comments on CD’s criticism of the harsh tone of Generelle Morphologie. Thinks he may have harmed himself but not the cause. Believes a radical reform of the science necessary, and since most scientists take a prejudiced view of the matter, a vigorous attack is essential.

Describes his travels in Canaries, Spain, and France.

Summary

JDH has left for Paris with Thomas Thomson.

Baby is better.

Summary

Sends CD a Cardigan Jacket, ‘one of the most delightful inventions of the age’.

Discusses the Duke of Argyll.

Summary

Will have to delay starting on the bust of CD.