Summary

A sheep-breeder friend has found that he can produce twins and triplets in his flock by "a sudden supply of improved feeding stuff" at time of conception. This would appear to remove the objection CD refers to in Descent that animals supplied with an excess of food become sterile.

Summary

Comments on GJR’s lecture on evolution.

Regrets failure of graft experiments.

Hopes GJR will not give up on Pangenesis. Mentions article by Gustav Jäger on Pangenesis.

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Working hard on physiology of plants.

His son George sees no reason to change his view on marriage of cousins.

George’s astronomical work is too deep for CD.

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Is obliged to JAWM for the honour done in sending CD his Der Kreislauf des Lebens (1877).

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Thanks RAV for valuable letter [11232]. CD too ignorant of anatomy to form a decided opinion, but is inclined to attribute spiral folds to reversion and the valves to partial abortion of the fold. Asks RAV to verify by examining lower intestine of an opossum for the structure. If missing he would hesitate to allude to reversion. If RAV can prove the nature of these remnants it would be a conclusion of much interest.

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Offers to send green insects that give off a powerful odour of napthalene.

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Sends a drawing [missing] of alleged fossil man found in Colorado. JM is certain it is a hoax perpetrated by P. T. Barnum. It was designed to conform to CD’s well-known views of man’s ancestor.

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Sends his paper ["Die selbst-sterilität des Roggens", Landwirtsch. Jahrb. 6 (1877): 1073–6] on self-sterility in Secale cereale. AWR was wrong in claiming Beta vulgaris was perfectly self-sterile.

Reports results of crossing wheat varieties. In the first generation offspring are always uniform; some are intermediate, some resemble one parent. In the second generation, on the contrary, he got a diversity of parental and intermediate forms.

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"Many thanks for the specimens which will be very useful whenever a new Edition is required."

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Would like the letters from grandfather [Erasmus Darwin] to J. A. H. Reimarus to be published.

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Thanks him for sending his Birds of Connecticut.

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Sends the name of a plant: Cotyledon stolonifera.

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He has heard CD is about to be elected to the Académie des Sciences.

Cross and self-fertilisation, with its emphasis on insect pollination, helps explain the problem he has worked on for so long: i.e., the rapid diversification of angiosperms in the fossil record occurs in conjunction with the diversification of insects.

Summary

JCC and his young daughter have observed that blossoms of Drosera rotundifolia open in afternoon, which contradicts Forms of flowers.

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Thanks for letter. Values CD’s opinion more than that of anybody else.

Perfectly astonished at reception CD got among popular audiences at GJR’s lectures.

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Thanks for letter about beet. Will strike out statement about it in MS of new edition of Forms of flowers.

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Expresses his gratitude and admiration for AK’s and M. G. Retzius’s Studien in der Anatomie des Nervensystems und des Bindegewebes (2 vols. 1875–6).

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Thanks for Origin, 6th ed.

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A misprint in Variation.

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Such honours as proposal for election to Institut affect CD very little.

GdeS’s idea that dicotyledonous plants were not developed until sucking insects evolved is a splendid one. The suggestion that fertilisation of the surviving members of the most ancient dicotyledons should be studied is a good one. CD hopes GdeS will keep it in mind.