Summary

Eldest daughter [Henrietta] very ill.

CD enjoys Owen’s having had "a good setting down".

Summary

Hyaena remains show how recently Sicily was joined to Africa.

Reports on the Oxford meeting of BAAS.

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

Origin has "stirred up the mud with a vengeance"; AG and three or four others have saved CD from annihilation and are responsible for the attention now given to the subject. Reports events at Oxford BAAS meeting.

New evidence supports AG’s view of a warm post-glacial period.

Discusses his recent orchid observations.

Poses AG a question on design in nature.

Summary

Discusses views of T. V. Wollaston concerning island species related to those of mainland; possible land connection between islands and mainland.

Comments on bats of Atlantic islands.

Plant extinction on St Helena.

Experiments on Drosera.

Bronn’s objections [to the Origin] at end of his translation.

Summary

Mentions extinction on St Helena.

Madeira and Canary Island insects are found at Cape of Good Hope.

Regrets errors on dingo in his manuscript on the dog.

Discusses crosses among pigeons.

Compares development in birds and mammals.

Plans to write about other domestic animals.

Discusses races of early man.

Falconer’s discoveries of fossil elephants.

Comments on articles by Asa Gray.

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

Returns "excellent" MS in which CD favours hybrid origin of domestic dog, which CL believes strengthens case for common progenitor of wild species.

Doubts CD’s authorities for antiquity of dingo.

Variation will raise many points for investigation.

"Leporine" hare–rabbit hybrid should be investigated.

Has re-read passages in Origin that CD suggested.

Annals of Natural History would probably reprint Gray’s review of Origin at their own expense.

CD’s thought that modern reptiles could not develop into existing Mammalia but only into another high form is a "grand notion" compatible with "the infinite capacity of the creative power".

Comments on New Guinea marsupials.

Still thinks that the Australian genera and species are so well fitted for extraordinary droughts that they would get the better of the dingo.

Suggests that once there were more races of man, though from common stock. Competition and then hybridity checked divergence.

Falconer’s views on elephant classification. CL attaches little value to Falconer’s objection that mastodons and elephants do not come in chronologically, as they should in CD’s view.

Summary

JDH has probably influenced Bates by pointing out applicability of CD’s views to his cases.

Is greatly puzzled by difference in effect of external conditions on individual animals and plants. Cannot conceive that climate could affect even such a single character as a hooked seed.

Does not think Huxley is right about "saltus".

Summary

CD’s climbing plant experiments make it impossible to deny nerve force in plants.

Has discussed Frankland’s new glacial theory with Lyell.

Bishop Colenso’s trial.

Possibility of Scott’s coming to Kew as a curator.

Summary

The adultery of Lady [Harriet Spencer] Grey and Captain Keppell.

A new species of elephant discovered by Hugh Falconer.

Comments on excellent review by Asa Gray [Atlantic Monthly 6 (1860): 229–39].

Still believes dogs descended from several wild stocks.

Summary

Asks for copy of CD’s paper ["Ancient glaciers of Caernarvonshire", Collected papers 1: 163–71]. Gathers that drift of Moel Tryfan is glacial.

Believes Glen Roy roads formed later than submergence of Scotland.

Asks CD’s opinion concerning relative chronology of various glacial deposits, particularly a flint tool find in the Ouse River near Bedford.

Summary

W. B. Carpenter’s review of Origin [in Br. & Foreign Med.-Chir. Rev. 25 (1860): 367–404] "very good and well balanced, but not brilliant".

"There is a brilliant review by Huxley" [Westminster Rev. 17 (1860): 541–70].

Asa Gray sends good case of selection producing black pigs in Virginia.

Great blow to CD that CL cannot admit potency of natural selection.

Owen’s review in Edinburgh Review [111 (1860): 487–532] "extremely malignant, clever".

Patrick Matthew has published extract in Gardeners’ Chronicle [7 Apr 1860] from his Naval timber and arboriculture [1831], a complete but not developed anticipation of natural selection.

Summary

Comments on Wollaston’s troubles

and his book [Coleoptera Hesperidum (1867)].

Mohl’s claim to foreign membership in Royal Society very strong.

Has been in despair about Variation – not worth a fifth part of the labour it cost him.

Is reading F. A. W. Miquel’s Flora du Japon [Prolusio florae Japonicae (1866–7)]; wonders whether A. Murray could be correct in his view that an area of the sea prevented Asiatico-Japan flora colonising western N. America.

Comments on A. Murray’s book [Geographical distribution of mammals (1866)].

Summary

Arranges a time for visiting HF.

Summary

Offers to supply CD with information about a new "race" of bees with a larger proboscis. They produce more honey as a result of being able to probe to greater depths.

Summary

Requests photograph.

Summary

Encloses arrow-heads.

Comments on gestation in dogs.

Mentions BAAS meeting at Oxford.

Etty’s illness.

Criticises views of J. W. Dawson on organic and geological change.

The problems of distinguishing varieties and species.

Discusses facts explained by his theory.

Summary

Thanks for information about Pliocene mammal. Interested in relating process of formation to duration of the species. Oswald Heer’s view that species suddenly formed surely false.

Bad summer with much sickness. Going to Malvern [for water-cure] for a month.

Muddled over phyllotaxy and made out nothing.