Summary

AD is aware of revolutionary character of his pamphlet [Ursprung der Wirbelthiere]. Authorities will not agree with him. Carl Gegenbaur and Ernst Haeckel are opposed. Younger biologists are disposed to accept his views. All he can expect is to put a stop to "the Amphioxus–Ascidian affair, and to open a road for speculation and for investigation on the side of the Annelid-homology".

Summary

Proofs arrived and Francis is correcting them. Tells Emma Darwin that Amy is delighted about the azaleas. The Ruck family very much like Isabella Bird’s Six months in the Sandwich Islands.

Summary

Will send corrected proofs [of Insectivorous plants].

Summary

JM proposes to print 1000 copies [of Insectivorous plants].

Summary

JM agrees to raise number of first printing [of Insectivorous plants] to 1250 if CD will wait for his share of profits until sales reach 750 or 800.

Summary

EBT’s brother, Alfred Tylor, wishes to visit CD with George Young.

AT’s "pluvial period" theory.

Summary

Informs CD that Lyon Playfair would introduce the bill in the House of Commons, and that Lord Cardwell and Lord Shaftesbury had agreed to support it, the former introducing the bill in the House of Lords.

Summary

Writes about a white rabbit which is turning fawn-coloured,

and about Scottish education.

Summary

Further discussion of the introduction of a bill by Lyon Playfair on animal experimentation.

Summary

Notes absence of material on fossil coral reefs in CD’s 2d edition [Coral reefs (1874)]. Has been collecting specimens from a fossil reef near his home for four years; gave many to Oxford.

Summary

A letter introducing T. F. Burgers, President of the Transvaal Republic.

Summary

Would like to call on CD if convenient.

Summary

Sends his paper to show his priority over John Le Couteur. Claims discovery of the "law of development" of cereals.

Summary

Lyon Playfair’s bill [on vivisection] is unacceptable to all teachers of physiology. It prohibits dissections for demonstrations to students. He will have to repudiate it. Asks CD’s advice.

Summary

The Government has decided to hold a Royal Commission on vivisection with Lord Cardwell as chairman.

Summary

Insists that he, not Le Couteur, was the first to recognise and exploit variation within wheat varieties. Disturbed he was not acknowledged in Variation.

Summary

Believes Lyon Playfair has been led to compromise too far on bill about animal experimentation as a result of pressure from men wishing to suppress science. A full enquiry is to take place. [See 9987.] Suggests that CD send Playfair Huxley’s letter on the subject.

Summary

The insect-capturing Araujia has been forwarded from Portugal.

He discovers Apocynum is not in the same family, and he has misquoted [John Leonard Knapp’s Journal of a naturalist (1829)]; Apocynum captures by stamens, not stigma.

Sends seeds of Portuguese Drosera.

Summary

The Vivisection Bill was defeated because it was repudiated by one of its own fathers: J. S. Burdon Sanderson.

Summary

Has heard from Italian minister that the inhabitants of the Japanese island of Saghalien [Sakhalin], lately ceded to Russia, have their bodies covered with hair, like the gorilla, and are supposedly the remnant of the aboriginal population of the Japanese islands.