Summary

Local affairs.

Summary

Praise for a paper on the Entomostraca by Lubbock (Lubbock 1862). Thanks for the compliment paid to the Origin and for his general comments.

Summary

Local affairs.

Summary

Birth of JL’s child.

Summary

Is puzzled what to think about the [Natural History] Review. Doubts that it is wise that JL and Huxley should give up time to it: "if it would stop your doing original work you ought not, even pro bono publico, undertake the new work".

Reports on Henrietta’s health.

The Quarterly Review [108 (1860): 255–64] quizzes CD "capitally" and he read it with thorough enjoyment.

Summary

Drawing up paper on Drosera but will not publish till results are tested.

Summary

Glad CL plans trip to Amiens to investigate flints and post-glacial period.

Mentions support by Huxley, Hooker, and Lubbock at Oxford BAAS meeting. Asa Gray also goes on fighting.

Likes article by William Hopkins ["Physical theories and the phenomena of life", Fraser’s Mag. 61 (1860): 739–52; 62 (1860): 74–90].

Comments on hybrids of hare and rabbit.

Summary

Comments on BAAS meeting: "our side seems to have got on very well". Asa Gray, too, is fighting nobly.

Comments on review [by Samuel Wilberforce] in the Quarterly [Rev. 108 (1860): 225–64].

Mentions a favourable review in the London Review.

Wonders if German translation [of the Origin] by Bronn has drawn attention to the subject.

The Natural History Review to be edited by Huxley and others.

Expects CL’s book [Antiquity of man (1863)] to be a bombshell.

Summary

Will take Natural History Review, but cannot write for it.

Has mass of notes on irritability in orchids,

but he ought to work on Variation.

Drosera was an interlude while away from home. Expectations for effect of carbonate of ammonia on Dionaea. The important phenomenon in Drosera is the segregation of the red fluid within the leaf, not action of carbonate of ammonia on the red fluid.

Summary

CD’s reaction to review of the Origin [by Samuel Wilberforce] in Quarterly Review [see 2881].

Summary

Is sending CL an arrow-head. Says John Lubbock tells of vast numbers of flint tools in peat in France. Urges CL to conduct further research on the subject.

Comments on paper by J. S. Newberry concerning palaeozoic deposits in America [Am. J. Sci. 2d ser. 29 (1860): 208–18]

and on A. von Keyserling’s view of species change.

Mentions J. W. Salter’s chart arranging Spirifer.

Comments on Andrew Murray’s paper on the Origin ["On Mr Darwin’s theory of the origin of species", Proc. R. Soc. Edinburgh 4 (1860): 274–91].

A Manchester newspaper article says CD has proved "might is right".

Summary

News of Etty’s health and of neighbours.

Pleased that JBI likes Origin.

CD never expected to convert people in less than 20 years, though now convinced he is "in the main right". Bishop of Oxford’s review made "splendid fun" of him.

Summary

Has visited T. V. Wollaston, who is working hard but lives too solitary a life.

There are further legal complications with William Darwin’s partnership and CD’s solicitor wants to call on JL.

Summary

Orders Richard Owen’s Anatomy of vertebrates [1866–8],

subscribes to Annals and Magazine of Natural History,

and orders three back numbers of Medical Times and Gazette.

Summary

Writes regarding the possibility of banking partnership for WED; second note arranges a meeting between the involved parties in London.

Summary

Wants examples of insects (especially Diptera) in which embryo resembles adult, to show that the metamorphic stages may be lost.

Summary

Has read MS of AM’s review [of Origin, read at Edinburgh Royal Society, 20 Feb 1860]; has no complaints. Has never heard of a hostile reviewer’s doing so kind and generous an action [as sending his MS for CD’s criticism?]. Sends some remarks on details.

Summary

Did not know about separation between Silurian and Cambrian.

Cannot attend Geological Society meeting.

Etty [Henrietta Darwin] ill.

Sedgwick in his attack at Cambridge Philosophical Society states "there must be [on CD’s theory] large genera not varying".

Discusses migration of plants and animals from Old World to New.

Views of Asa Gray on Aster.

Mentions flora of coal period.

Has been elected to Philadelphia Academy of Natural Sciences.

Summary

Has heard, through Lubbock, of a gentleman who is offering a partnership in a bank.

Summary

Family and local news, and memories of old times.

CD’s youngest son, Horace, is too delicate to go to school.

CD has had a bad summer, is still ill, can do very little work – "Botany … is all that I am good for".