Summary

Sends MS [of chs. 3 and 4, "Comparison of the mental powers of man and the lower animals", Descent] to HED for her criticism. CD fears parts are too much like a sermon; "who wd ever have thought I shd turn parson?"

Summary

Responds to her suggested corrections [of Descent].

Summary

CD writes for Emma, who is ill.

Delighted with FPC’s "most just" article [in Echo?]. Sends £1 subscription.

Thanks for telling CD about the Fraser’s Magazine article [F. W. Farrar, "Hereditary genius (by F. Galton)", n.s. 2 (1870): 251–65].

CD wrote as Justice of Peace for Kent to the Home Secretary about Holder’s case.

Tropaeolum transmits every shade of colour if self-fertilised for six or seven generations.

Summary

Despite HBJ’s good aid, CD’s stomach will not permit a visit.

Summary

Invites WDF to visit.

Describes activities of his children.

Summary

Would like to call at 10 o’clock on Wednesday morning.

Summary

Has read the notes on Rond [Round] Island which he owes to JDH. What an enigma its flora and fauna present, especially the problem of monocotyledons! Asks JDH’s opinion.

A new book on St Helena confirms CD’s observations.

Summary

Suggests the recipient catch the 4.12 train.

Summary

Congratulates BJS on his K.C.B.

In autumn he will publish a book partly on man [Descent], which he expects "many will decry as very wicked".

Thinks the success of the Tierra del Fuego mission is wonderful.

Summary

Invites AG to Down for a weekend with A. Newton, R. Swinhoe, and Hooker.

Summary

On amount of modification and lines of descent in determining the position in man.

Reference to StGJM’s article "On the appendicular skeleton of the primates" Phil. Trans. R. Soc. [157 (1867): 299–430],

and his [and James Murie’s] article on lemurs ["On the anatomy of Lemuroidea"] Trans. Zool. Soc. [7 (1872): 1–114].

Summary

Thanks for sending him a hybrid.

Summary

Was gratified "beyond measure" by AN’s comments on his pigeon chapter [in Variation] in the [Zoological] Record [5 (1868): 94–6]. AN is the first man capable of forming a judgment who seems to have thought anything of this part.

Summary

"I have received a very large box full of beautiful tea from Russia yesterday … my life is as regular & monotonous as a clock.

I make sure, but wofully slow progress, with my new book."

Summary

Concern about futures of Willy [Hooker] and Horace [Darwin].

Henrietta [Darwin] back from Cannes.

CD has been to Cambridge to visit Frank [Darwin]. Saw Sedgwick, who took him to the [Geological] Museum and utterly exhausted him. Humiliating to be "killed by a man of 86".

Saw Alfred Newton.

CD has been working away on man, to much greater length (as usual) than expected,

and on cross- and self-fertilisation.

Does JDH happen to have seeds of Canna warszewiczii matured in some hot country?

Sympathises with JDH on Dawson’s paper – amusing that Dawson hashes up E. D. Cope’s and L. Agassiz’s views.

Summary

The "man-essay" [Descent] is "very interesting but very difficult".

Cat-like behaviour in dogs.

Thanks for information from Louis Agassiz;

wishes he could feel he deserves what Alexander Agassiz says of him.

Summary

Sends list of his publications.

Is grateful for interest QdeB has taken in his election [to Académie Française].