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Is it convenient for him and Willy to come to Down from Thursday to Sunday?

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Hopes to visit tomorrow if CD is up to it.

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Wishes to invest some money in railway shares; asks for the advice of the bank’s brokers.

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On ACR’s paper on glacial origin of lakes. CD thinks it is correct. Suggests further investigation to corroborate it. His only doubt has to do with areas of great activity.

On ACR’s view of cause of glacial period: CD did battle with Hooker on same point.

T. F. Jamieson has smashed CD’s Glen Roy marine theory in splendid style.

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Thanks for Orchids.

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Sends observations on Valeriana officinalis.

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Accepts CD’s invitation.

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Thanks WDF for interesting letter about turkeys. Would be grateful for information on fertility of the hybrids.

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Thinks JDH is a bit hard on Asa Gray.

Bates’s letter is that of a true thinker. Asks to see JDH’s to Bates. Point raised in it is most difficult. "There is one clear line of distinction; – when many parts of structure as in woodpecker show distinct adaptation to external bodies, it is preposterous to attribute them to effect of climate etc. – but when a single point, alone, as a hooked seed, it is conceivable that it may thus have arisen." His study of orchids shows nearly all parts of the flower co-adapted for fertilisation by insects and therefore the result of natural selection. Mormodes ignea "is a prodigy of adaptation".

Summary

Mentions a discussion of man by Isidore Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire in his Histoire naturelle générale [1854–62].

Mentions a book by Friedrich Rolle [Ch. Darwin’s Lehre von der Entstehung der Arten (1863)].

Cites evolutionary statements on elephants by Hugh Falconer and notes Falconer’s objection to natural selection.

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Quiz has had to be killed because he became vicious.

Horace Darwin strangely ill.

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CD’s health is bad.

Would like to visit CD on Friday.

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Comments on presentation copy of Orchids: bee Ophrys self-fertilisation; origin of nectar; odour of orchids. Book gives strong cases for special creationists.

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Leonard Darwin has scarlet fever so GHD has said he should be sent home and has asked E. A. Williams to call at Down.

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On effect of external conditions: CD thinks all variability due to changes in conditions of life because there is more variability under unnatural domestic conditions than under nature, and changed conditions affect the reproductive organs. But why one seedling out of thousands presents some new character transcends the wildest powers of conjecture.

Not shaken by "saltus" – he had examined all cases of normal structure resembling monstrosities which appear per saltum. Has fought his tendency to attribute too much to natural selection; perhaps he has too much conquered it.

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Grieved to hear of CD’s illness; begs him not to give moment’s thought to his MS until health has returned.

Plans to exhibit mimetic butterflies at Linnean Society.

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Muscular fibres of whale no larger than those of bee – evidence of a community of origin.

Problem of the abortive wings of ostrich in relation to conditions of their survival.

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Sends paper to be read ["Sexual forms of Catasetum", Collected papers 2: 63–70].

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Has several specimens illustrating dimorphism in insects that he would be happy to leave where CD could examine them.

Discusses the ant genera Formica and Atta, and the origin of the two forms of workers commonly found in the species of these genera.

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Sends plant specimens. William Borrer will be glad to send seeds.