Summary

Blyth’s effort to raise money for a Chinese expedition.

Comments on free-will in animals.

Says natural selection is not in the same category with Huxley’s "force" and "matter".

Discusses remarkable variation in period of gestation in dogs and ducks.

Discusses Arctic flora.

Has been working on orchids; they beat woodpeckers in adaptation.

Summary

Asks FD to reply to a letter [11653a] requesting a list of CD’s books.

Summary

GHD explains conduction, radiation, and convection.

His paper on political economy for Royal Institution lecture has reached 60 pages. Plans to send it to Contemporary Review.

Summary

Discusses WED’s growing interest in botany; would be grateful for certain observations.

Is much concerned about Horace’s illness.

Has sent Orchids MS to printers

and will work a little at dimorphism.

Summary

Asking Thomas Salt to inform the Executors of Captain Muckleston that he wishes to foreclose the mortgage.

Summary

Wants JW’s permission to carry out certain investments.

Summary

Congratulates CL on finding Arctic shells.

Comments on paper by E. B. Hunt ["On the origin, growth, substructure and chronology of the Florida reef", Am. J. Sci. 2d ser. 35 (1863): 197–210].

Mentions J. D. Dana’s health.

George Bentham’s statement on species [Proc. Linn. Soc. Lond. (1863): xi–xxix].

Praises Bates’s book [Naturalist on the river Amazons (1863)].

Summary

CD’s election to Botany Section of French Academy amuses him, because he "doesn’t know the characters of a single natural order!".

Summary

He and Emma rejoice that GHD’s mathematical troubles are at an end. It is miraculous that he unconsciously followed the right course – like composing a sonata by a fluke.

Summary

Instructions to sow some seeds

and suggestions for experiment on effects of removal of bloom.

Likes Hugo de Vries very much; has hardly ever seen so modest a man.

Summary

CD’s photograph looks like J. R. Herbert’s Moses in the fresco in the House of Lords.

JDH is delighted about oxlip, but hybridity does not explain some large patches that are uniform and do not vary towards either cowslip or primrose.

Encloses letter from W. H. Harvey discussing Myosotis sylvatica and the common dandelion.

Summary

Writes of arrangements for the end of the school-term.

Condition of Emma and the new baby [C. W. Darwin].

Summary

If convenient, CD will visit WDF at Osmaston early in September. Went to Barmouth with his sisters.

Summary

Writes of domestic matters

and asks WED to observe cart-horses for traces of dark stripes on spine and cross-stripes on shoulder.

Summary

Has been reading Julius von Wiesner’s book [Das Bewegungsvermögen der Pflanzen (1881)]. Comments that it is "an excellent book, but he vivisects me in the most grievous terms, but most effectively".

Has been experimenting on aggregation of chlorophyll but with little success.

Summary

Agrees to read manuscript if short.

Summary

Writes at Frank Buckland’s suggestion. Can JB provide any information on the proportion of sexes in rats?

Do male rats fight for the possession of the female? Are they polygamous?

Summary

Cannot write so is using Lily as secretary. Proud to be member of Geological Society. Sends observations of rhododendron leaves. Could not find piece of ploughed land. Has proved Josiah Wedgwood III’s death in North Eastern Railway Company. Taking care because head hurts.

Summary

Writes of the weather,

his reading of Huxley’s Crayfish [1880],

and domestic matters.