Summary

Will DO observe whether leaf [of Nepenthes] with pitcher ever wound round a stick? CD’s plant is improving.

Summary

Thanks for praise [of Origin].

Comments on EH’s Die Radiolarien.

Grieved EH has suffered calamity [death of Anna Sethe Haeckel].

CD recovering from long illness.

Doing easy botanical work.

Mentions variability.

Discusses reception of CD’s views in Germany.

Summary

Notes and queries on climbing plants for JDH [? given to him by CD at their meeting of 24 July 1864].

Summary

JDH’s visit stimulates CD’s interest in his own work. Encloses list of queries on climbing plants. [Missing]

Summary

Clarifies queries on climbing plants.

Summary

Scott would be very welcome at Down for a short visit.

Summary

Asks JDH to name a Bignonia.

Coming to end of climbing plants paper.

Summary

First draft of climbing plants paper is completed.

Nepenthes is a true climber.

Scott has visited Down.

Summary

Believes he gave JDH wrong address.

Summary

CD is not well enough to sit for Woolner.

Two Bignonia plants, which JDH does not distinguish as species, can be separated by differences in climbing and sensitivity behaviour.

Wants to write a non-quarrelsome reply to R. A. Kölliker ["Darwin’sche Schöpfungstheorie", Z. Wiss. Zool. 14 (1864): 174–86] in the Reader. Lyell opposes, but E. A. Darwin and Hensleigh Wedgwood support the idea.

Summary

CD continues to have trouble reconciling the Veitch’s names for Bignonia plants and Kew names.

Lyell and Falconer called on CD in London.

Summary

Thanks for a copy of AAL’s Problèmes de la nature 1864 (Problems of Nature; Laugel 1864).

Summary

Explains that Orchids has been translated into German (Bronn trans. 1862); and that Living Cirripedia can now be purchased at Hardwicke’s, 192 Piccadilly, London.

Summary

Has finished Climbing plants;

resuming work on Variation.

Sends abstract of John Scott’s paper [see 4332].

Has received review of Herbert Spencer but cannot believe AG wrote it unless he has muddled his brains with metaphysics.

Summary

Pleased that Bentham is cautious about Naudin’s view of reversion. CD can show experimentally that crossing of races and species tends to bring back ancient characters.

Suggests Gärtner’s Bastarderzeugung [1849] be translated

and that Oliver review Scott’s Primula paper [J. Linn. Soc. Lond. (Bot.) 8 (1865): 78–126] for a future issue of Natural History Review.

Is working on Variation.

Summary

Inquires which nurserymen near Edinburgh cultivate coloured primroses and cowslips. Wants to repeat John Scott’s remarkable experiments.

Summary

Glad that Oliver is to review John Scott’s paper in the Natural History Review (Scott 1864a). Apologises that his enclosed references (now missing) are so paltry.

Summary

CD sends thanks for MTM’s note on monsters. Adds comment on MTM’s point that some species become monstrous more frequently than others.

Summary

Pleased with news of BAAS meeting

and Scott’s possible position as Thomas Anderson’s curator.

Suggests Wallace is due for a Royal Medal.

Agrees with JDH’s criticism of Lyell’s address [see 4614].

Bentham’s Linnean Society address treats continuity of life in a vague non-natural sense.

Rereading his old MS [Natural selection] CD is impressed with work he had already done.

Writing Variation much harder than Climbing plants.

Encloses request to JDH to propose, or suggest on his behalf, that the Ray Society publish a translation of C. F. von Gärtner’s Versuche und Beobachtungen über die Bastarderzeugung im Pflanzenreich (1849).

Summary

Admires THH’s article on Kölliker’s and Flourens’ criticisms of Origin [in Natural History Review (1864): 566–80].