Summary

Aggressive behaviour of a bullfinch toward new arrival in JJW’s aviary.

Sexual differences in goldfinches: size of beaks.

Sexual selection in Lepidoptera.

Thinks Dr Alex Wallace’s observations on Bombyx not conclusive in proving that no preference is shown by females.

Summary

Offers enclosure demonstrating that natural selection could produce sterility of hybrids.

More on Pangenesis and the inadequacy of H. Spencer’s approach.

Summary

Is engaged on an article for Fortnightly Review on Variation ["Mr Darwin’s hypotheses", n.s. 9: 353–73, 611–28; n.s. 10: 61–80, 492–509]. Asks CD some questions.

While he agrees with natural selection, he believes many "organic details" develop irrespective of advantage.

Summary

Canine teeth in males are always larger than in females and certainly so in Cervulus moschus.

Summary

Asks CD to collect from the Jermyn Street Museum a box containing a skull and bones which belong to Mr Cumberbatch.

Summary

Now quite understands Pangenesis. Satisfaction given by it, as CD says, may depend on one’s mental constitution. In all cases of descent JDH has always thought "all the properties of the parents are transmitted in the one cell and were diffused to every part of the future offspring".

Tyndall believes he feels atoms as firmly as St Paul believed he saw Christ.

Summary

JM offers a note for 400 guineas as author’s payment on sale of 1250 copies of 2d issue of Variation.

Summary

Quotes information from Dr Power on colour of sexes of Crustacea in Mauritius [see Descent 1: 335].

Summary

Sends copy of a paper on his flock of sheep, which confirms much of what CD says in Variation,

together with a note he made of an instance of cattle "determining the existence" of a tree [cf. Origin, ch. 3].

Summary

Proportions of sexes of the silkworm are about equal, but knows of no statistics.

Cannot share his view of origin of species.

Summary

Crying in babies.

Summary

Visiting W. D. Fox.

Sends specimen of Cardamine pratensis,

and an account of a striped horse.

Discusses Pangenesis.

Has returned to religion and has been reflecting on God’s mercies, one of which CD should remember from about 1828 at Bodnant.

Summary

Replies to CD on salmon: the pugnacity of males and the proportions of sexes. [see Descent 1: 308, 2: 3.]

Summary

Does not think females give preference to any males. Coloration, pugnacity; cases of use of colour in struggle for existence. [see Descent 1: 395.]

Summary

JM sends note for £420.

Asks CD to use his good offices on behalf of William Clowes’s son who is up for election to Athenaeum.

Summary

First volume of Variation in French has been printed. Second volume has been translated. CD’s additions to chapter 11 arrived in time.

Summary

Protective coloration in butterflies.

[Alexander] Wallace’s suggestion that collecting larger larvae of females accounts for error in counting proportion of sexes.

Summary

Various facts about birds: pairing, finding new mates, protective coloration, polygamy, sexual differences.

Summary

On critical exchanges at the Linnean Society on natural selection and mimicry.

Roland Trimen’s paper on South African mimetic butterflies ["On some remarkable mimetic resemblances among African butterflies", Trans. Linn. Soc. Lond. 26 (1870): 497–523; read 5 Mar 1868].

Summary

Proportion of sexes in Lepidoptera.

Sexual preference.

Role of coloration [see Descent 1: 311–12].