Summary

Sends remaining proofs of RO’s description of Toxodon [Fossil Mammalia] and a revise of first part. Will Owen want a second revise? CD has made "plenty of remarks".

Summary

CD sorry RO is not well and fears work on Macrauchenia may have contributed. Thinks new name very good. Other details concerning publication [of Zoology, pt 1, no. 1].

Summary

Dissected beak of Rhynchops shows no extensive innervation. But beak may nevertheless be a sensitive organ of touch as CD suggests.

Summary

Sends RO a box of fossils from William Darwin Fox, from the Isle of Wight.

Summary

Sends perfect revise of "Toxodon" [Fossil Mammalia] which he has read and marked.

Summary

Would like to call upon RO to discuss the last engravings sent by George Scharf. CD assumes that the revise of Toxodon [see 395] was received.

Summary

Sends photographs received from Mr Van der Weyde who is working with associates in Montevideo collecting fossil bones. Asks WHF’s opinion of a specimen about which they are curious.

CD intends urging them to search the Tertiary bed beneath the Pampean formation.

Summary

Apologises for length of notes of advice for microscopic work.

Summary

Invites the Owens to stay at Down, joining Falconer and a few others.

Summary

Galapagos land birds and reptiles.

No two naturalists agree on any fundamental idea [of species]. "Everything is arbitrary."

Has been with Richard Owen going over the S. American fossils.

Has worked out the non-relation between animals’ bulk and luxuriance of vegetation.

The horse once common on the Pampas. The mystery of the extinction of these animals.

Summary

Has not been well.

Plans a geological trip to Glen Roy in Scotland.

Thanks WDF for remembering the crossing of animals, CD’s "prime hobby". "I really think some day I shall be able to do something on that most intricate subject species and varieties."

Summary

Gives extract from a letter from Capt. R. Tickell: rabbits are not bred by the Burmese; common European and Chinese geese are bred but have probably only recently been introduced.

EB gives references to works illustrating the dog-like instinct of N. American wolves.

Discusses reason and instinct; ascribes both to man and animals. Comments on various instincts, e. g. homing, migratory, parental, constructive, and defensive. Reasoning in animals; cattle learning to overcome fear of passing trains.

Hybrid sterility as an indication of distinct species. Interbreeding as an indication of common parentage.

Enlarges upon details given by J. C. Prichard [in The natural history of man (1843)].

Adaptation of the two-humped camel to cold climates. Camel hybrids.

Doubts that domestic fowl or fancy pigeons have ever reverted to the wild.

Feral horses and cattle of S. America.

Believes the "creole pullets" to be a case of inaccurate description.

Variations in skulls between species of wild boar.

Pigs are so prolific that the species might be expected to cross.

Milk production of cows and goats.

Sheep and goats of lower Bengal.

Indian breeds of horses.

Variation in Asiatic elephants.

Spread of American tropical and subtropical plants in the East.

EB distinguishes between races and artificially-produced breeds.

[CD’s notes are an abstract of this memorandum.]

Summary

Has just given a paper [on "Sand tubes"] at Cambridge Philosophical Society and exhibited some specimens. It went well, with Whewell and Sedgwick taking an active part.

Herschel thinks 6000–odd years since the creation not nearly long enough to explain the separations from a single stock.

Summary

Sends source of description of swimming bear catching insects [Samuel Hearne, A journey from Prince of Wales’s Fort in Hudson’s Bay to the northern ocean … (1795); see Origin, p. 184].

Summary

Has written to Royal College of Surgeons, exactly as RO recommended, concerning disposition of his South American fossil bones. He fixed on the British Museum, rather than Paris, to receive plaster casts, because he was on board a King’s ship. Suggests RO propose another set for Paris, where they would be more useful than at BM. Has scarcely begun unpacking his cases.