Summary

CD’s statement in Origin that clover is utterly dependent on humble-bee for fertilisation has been questioned by his friend’s evidence of visits by other insects. Asks CD’s opinion.

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

JL’s MS at printer’s [Prehistoric times (1865)].

Apologises for failure to post letter.

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

Sends an account of the destruction of wild rabbits by rats introduced from a wrecked ship.

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".

Summary

On Lubbock’s plans.

Visited by Antoine Auguste Laugel.

Guessed right on Bentham’s "Planchon".

Much struck by Thomson’s article on nomenclature [see 4812]; importance of this subject.

Sorry best scientists read so little; few read any long papers.

Summary

His better opinion [of work of Boucher de Perthes].

Explains his position on CL’s treatment of species.

Mentions positive response to his ideas on the part of a German professor [Ernst Haeckel], Alphonse de Candolle, and a botanical palaeontologist [Gaston de Saporta].

Notes negative reaction of entomologists.

Mentions Falconer’s objections [to Antiquity].

Mentions work of Hooker.

Comments on paper by Owen ["On the aye-aye", Rep. BAAS 32 (1862) pt 2: 114–16]

and CD’s review of Bates’s paper [Collected papers 2: 87–92].

Thinks Natural History Review is excellent.

Summary

Attacks the doctrine of "heterogeny" (spontaneous generation during each geological period) as completely lacking in evidence.

Defends natural selection as connecting large classes of facts in natural history. That certain forms have not changed since remote epochs is not an objection of any force.

Summary

Discusses the direction of WED’s studies.

Tells of the response to the Origin and the impact that it has made in England and abroad.

Summary

The Witness attacks THH’s lecture.

Assures CD he spoke more favourably of his doctrines than the reports show.

Agrees with CD’s arguments on sterility of hybrids and predicts physiological experiments will produce physiological species sterile inter se. Has come even closer to CD’s view especially since Primula paper. Will soon be more Darwinian than CD.

Summary

Asks CD to sign certificate nominating Flower for Royal Society.

Summary

Writes about difficulties in which S. J. O. Horsman, curate at Down, has involved himself and others. Horsman has said he would resign. JBI offers to give up his interests in the living at Down.

Summary

Returns a borrowed extract from the [Zoological?] Record.

Summary

Discusses the opportunity for WED to become a partner in a bank.

Summary

On the prospectus of Natural History Review. Suggests it might offer information on whether subjects that correspondents may wish to investigate have been done already.

Henrietta still very seriously ill.

Summary

CL’s research on flint tools.

Promises to send proof-sheets of Origin. Discusses his view of species.

Ill health of himself and his family.