Summary

CD thanks the editor of a picture book "for … the photographs of your striking pictures, & for the honour which you have done me by the introduction of my name and likeness into one of them".

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Thanks for his interesting essay on insectivorous plants.

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Comments on Weismann’s remarks on the possibility of sexual selection in the genus Daphnia.

A. R. Wallace has published paper giving up sexual selection [Review of St George Jackson Mivart’s Lessons from nature, as manifested in mind and matter.] in Academy, 10 and 17 June 1876, pp. 587–8.]

Summary

Has examined sections of teasel in putrid meat infusion and ammonia.

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Describes discovery by his son [Francis Darwin] of protoplasmic filaments extending from small glands in the leaves of Dipsacus [see Proc. R. Soc. Lond. 26 (1877): 4–8].

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Regrets he cannot hear lecture by F. C. Donders.

Hopes to see WB before he returns home.

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Greatly excited by the astronomical implications of his work.

Summary

Anticipates reading Haeckel’s Perigenesis der Plastidule [1876].

Physiologists will think vivisection bill stringent.

Honorary memberships of Physiological Society created expressly to honour CD.

Working hard at jellyfish just now. Needs snake poison.

Summary

‘Your mother ought indeed to feel proud that she had two sons such true naturalists as you and your brother [John Jenner Weir].’

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Comments on FD’s discovery – "if it so proves". It will be important to see whether the protoplasm oozes through the cell-walls [of Dipsacus] or whether it can be withdrawn.

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Looks to FD’s "grand discovery" as almost certain. Suggests observations.

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Has got a dodge to see protoplasm in Drosera in dead state. Comes to Hopedene with Amy tomorrow. his paper went off well.

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Thanks for essay [Philosophische Consequenzen der Lamarck–Darwin’schen Entwicklungstheorie (1876)].

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Further comments on GHD’s work on the influence of geological changes on the earth’s axis.

Frank [Francis Darwin] has made a fine zoological discovery.

Summary

Joseph Fayrer can supply cobra poison.

Discusses vivisection.

Mentions visit to the John Hawkshaws.

Summary

Is determined not to believe in GHD’s astronomical work until J. C. Adams accepts it, for he would be so disappointed if it breaks down.

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Response to ARW’s "grand and memorable work" [Geographical distribution (1876)]. Most interesting part to CD is ARW’s "protest against sinking imaginary continents".

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CD has quite given up the marine theory [of Glen Roy] and has accepted glacier lakes. "Nothing makes me gnash my teeth so much as that confounded paper of mine." It is a lesson "never in science to infer one explanation is right because no other one seems possible".

Summary

Sends his papers ["Contributions to the natural history of Kerguelen Island", U. S. Nat. Mus. Bull. 1, nos. 2, 3 (1876)], which are inspired by Journal of researches.

Summary

Requests chemical analysis of sample of both natural and burnt soil.