Summary

Urges publication of an exposure of Williams the spiritualist medium.

Summary

Thanks WCM for plant.

Mentions "your new room" at Down.

Summary

Thinks most of the experimental onions have died. Suspects the red and white were distinct species. If GJR is not "sick of the whole job" he might try with radishes or carrots.

Summary

Discusses animal intelligence.

Advises GJR on acquiring monkey.

Sends book by Delboeuf [La psychologie (1876)].

Summary

The geese have arrived. Does not think FBG’s view that the two forms are domestic varieties will hold good. Many ornithologists put them in different genera, and the wild type of each is known.

Summary

Julius von Sachs’s views on stomata seem largely correct, but CD cannot understand how leaves can survive submerged for such long periods.

Has been observing Drosera and concludes that none of the movement of the tentacles is caused by growth.

Suggests observations to show role of pulvinus in leaf movement.

Summary

Asks what position the sub-peduncles assume when the main flower peduncle of Oxalis is tied so as to be horizontal.

Asks whether FD can find some plants at Kew for CD to trace epinastic and hyponastic movements.

Summary

Will be interested to read BP’s work on history [of evolution?].

A learned Jew in Poland [Napthali Lewy?] has published a volume showing that evolution is an ancient belief.

Summary

Supports Epping Forest appointment.

Continues work on vegetable physiology.

Summary

Writing on vegetable physiology.

Nothing in CD’s life has ever interested him more than the fertilisation of such plants as Primula and Lythrum.

Summary

Discusses spiritualism. Says Williams, the medium, is exposed as fraud.

Summary

Thanks him for plant specimens.

Asks about sowing Drosera seeds.

Summary

Cannot explain the peculiarities of the blood corpuscles of the Camelidae; maybe similarity between camels and ostriches arises from adaptation rather than common ancestry.

Summary

Neither he nor [Francis Darwin] intends publishing on inheritance.

They are working on physiology of plants [Movement in plants], but will not print for a year.

Thinks JVC’s new journal [Zoologische Anzeiger] will be of great use to students of zoology.

Summary

Doubts that "the same well-characterized species should be produced in two distinct countries, or at two distinct times".

Summary

Comments on FBW’s paper ["Hemipterous fauna of St Helena", Proc. Zool. Soc. Lond. (1878): 444–77].

Summary

Thanks EBA for the copy of the Student’s Magazine.