Summary

Thanks GJR for his letter, regrets pressure of other work prevents his giving GJR’s remarks the attention they deserve. GJR makes clearer how an organ that has started to decrease will go on decreasing.

Summary

Comments on Spencer’s terms.

Summary

Speaks of visiting GJR at the Brown Institution.

Summary

Invites GJR to visit.

Summary

Thanks GJR for copy of his book [Christian prayer and general laws (1874)].

Discusses breeding and sterility.

Discusses experiments to test Pangenesis. Cites useful references.

Suggests GJR visit Kew gardens.

Summary

Urges GJR to visit Hooker at Kew.

Summary

Discourages grafting ears of rabbits. Suggests comb of fowl.

Summary

Describes accounts of potato grafting in a German journal.

Summary

Is sending plants from cut-leaved vine.

Invites GJR to visit.

"When in presence of my ladies do not talk about experiments on animals."

Summary

Describes experiments designed to produce graft-hybrid. Has achieved adhesion in great majority of experiments. Too early to tell what ultimate success will be.

Summary

Looks forward to reading CD’s statements about reflex action in Insectivorous plants.

Has prepared paper ["Physiology of the nervous system of Medusae", Rep. BAAS (1876): 158–63] in which he insists on occurrence of reflex action in absence of nerves. Would like to cite CD’s authority for occurrence of reflex action in plants.

Summary

Sends specimens of grafted potatoes. Describes grafting experiments designed to prove possibility of graft-hybrids, and thus, Pangenesis.

Summary

Sends successful graft-hybrid of red and white carrot.

CD should correct passage in Variation explaining deformation of sternum in fowls [Variation, 2d ed., 1: 287–8].

Chapter in Variation on Pangenesis is admirable.

Summary

Asks to borrow Ernst Haeckel’s Beiträge zur Naturgeschichte der Hydromedusen (1865) [and Zur Entwicklungsgeschichte der Siphonophoren (1869)].

Has not been neglecting Pangenesis for Medusae.

Summary

Thanks for copy of 2d ed. of Variation.

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

Delighted to hear of Frank Darwin’s discovery.

Seems hopeless to reason with people about vivisection.

Summary

Returns E. Haeckel’s Perigenesis [der Plastidule (1876)]. EH’s "plastidules" do not differ from Spencer’s "physiological units". Does not see that biology gains anything from EH’s theory.

Summary

No results yet with graft-hybrids.

Has been writing a paper.

"Lankester seems to have doubled up [H.] Slade [the medium] in fine style".

Summary

Notes on variation and selection; discussion of how selection could act to the advantage of a group but not to that of an individual within the group.