Summary

Arrangements to dine at JDH’s club.

Summary

Asks to borrow Philosophical Transactions, vol. 157, pt 2 (1868).

Summary

Discusses tuition arrangements for Horace Darwin.

Summary

Asks for facts relating to courtship of birds and especially cases of females preferring particular males.

Summary

Aggressive behaviour of a bullfinch toward new arrival in JJW’s aviary.

Sexual differences in goldfinches: size of beaks.

Sexual selection in Lepidoptera.

Thinks Dr Alex Wallace’s observations on Bombyx not conclusive in proving that no preference is shown by females.

Summary

Offers enclosure demonstrating that natural selection could produce sterility of hybrids.

More on Pangenesis and the inadequacy of H. Spencer’s approach.

Summary

Has been interested in copy of HD’s letter to H. T. Stainton on numerical proportions of the sexes of insects. Do they vary during different years?

Does he have opinions about the courtships of butterflies?

Will send a copy of his paper on Primula when it is published. [See 5997.]

Summary

Thanks HTS for his valuable information. Hopes to arrive at probable answer to question of proportion of males to females in the progeny of butterflies bred in domestication.

On courtship of butterflies, CD believes something more than chance is involved in determining which male is successful.

Summary

Is engaged on an article for Fortnightly Review on Variation ["Mr Darwin’s hypotheses", n.s. 9: 353–73, 611–28; n.s. 10: 61–80, 492–509]. Asks CD some questions.

While he agrees with natural selection, he believes many "organic details" develop irrespective of advantage.

Summary

Canine teeth in males are always larger than in females and certainly so in Cervulus moschus.

Summary

Asks CD to collect from the Jermyn Street Museum a box containing a skull and bones which belong to Mr Cumberbatch.

Summary

Thanks JEG for answering questions so fully and clearly, especially as he is troubled with his eyes.

Summary

Now quite understands Pangenesis. Satisfaction given by it, as CD says, may depend on one’s mental constitution. In all cases of descent JDH has always thought "all the properties of the parents are transmitted in the one cell and were diffused to every part of the future offspring".

Tyndall believes he feels atoms as firmly as St Paul believed he saw Christ.

Summary

JM offers a note for 400 guineas as author’s payment on sale of 1250 copies of 2d issue of Variation.

Summary

Quotes information from Dr Power on colour of sexes of Crustacea in Mauritius [see Descent 1: 335].

Summary

Thanks WS for information about moss roses and the Le Compte family.

Mentions WS’s recent papers on inheritance [Brit. & Foreign Med.-Chirurg. Rev. (1867)].

Summary

Acknowledges his election as a Corresponding Member of the Imperial Academy of Sciences, St Petersburg.

Summary

Sends copy of a paper on his flock of sheep, which confirms much of what CD says in Variation,

together with a note he made of an instance of cattle "determining the existence" of a tree [cf. Origin, ch. 3].

Summary

Payment of 400 guineas [Variation royalties] delights CD.

Summary

Sends sheets with alterations to be made [in Russian translation of Variation]. VOK should consider adding to the title-page that CD is a Corresponding Member of the Imperial Academy of Sciences (St Petersburg).