Summary

CD, in commenting on Wyville Thomson’s "Notes from the Challenger" [Nature 8 (1873): 347–9], recapitulates his work on rudimentary male cirripedes [Living Cirripedia], especially the complementary males attached to hermaphrodites. Offers an explanation, on evolutionary grounds, of their function and size.

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FD has asked J. B. Sanderson about Mucin.

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JJW is quite at liberty to use CD’s name as patron of cat show.

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He is travelling overnight by train from London to Pantlludw and will wake A. R. Ruck with a morningade on his flute.

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Thanks for observations on worm-castings and for JLGK’s amusing letter.

Wants to know whether species of Eucalyptus are dichogamous. [The P.S. on Eucalyptus may be part of another letter to another correspondent.]

Summary

Abstracts literature on sensitive plants (Linnaeus, L. P. Cailletet, W. R. McNab).

The Mimosa at Down is M. pudica.

Dichogamy in Eucalyptus difficult to decide, but Thiselton-Dyer thinks there is some protandry.

[Letter is in W. T. Thiselton-Dyer’s hand.]

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Will reread and consider TG’s letter when his health improves.

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Has been in bed for some days with ugly head symptoms. "We are a poor lot."

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Asks FD to bring any book that gives the affinities of the various earths, alkalis and metals.

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Diagnosis of CD’s illness; prescribed diet.

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Orders list of chemical salts. Ashamed to order from Hopkins and Williams because they charge him such an extremely low rate.

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Orders salts of various metals; thinks chlorides (where soluble) would be better than nitrates.

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Proud of CD’s good opinion of him. He worked in a merchant’s office in Germany for many years. Emigrated to Australia as a gold-digger and took up natural history after he was 30.

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Thanks JC-B for volume of Asylum reports and paper on epilepsy. Seems clear from reports that physiology of brain will soon be largely understood.

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Requests chemicals for Drosera experiments. Lists 12 acids tried so far.

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Pleased JSBS has decided to work on Drosera; sends plants. Does not know whether thermo-electric pile could detect temperature change when leaves close.

CD’s experiment with very weak hydrochloric acid repeated with success: the plants digest albumen more quickly.

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Thanks TFC for his extremely interesting paper ["On the fertilisation of the New Zealand species of Pterostyles", Trans. & Proc. N. Z. Inst. 5 (1872): 352–7]. Has no doubt his explanation [of the fertilisation mechanism] is correct. The case is analogous to that of the Cypripedium though TFC’s case is much more curious.

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Comparative study of "ethnical scriptures" shows that natural selection has operated in the evolution of religion.

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Reports case of a man with an eyelid abnormality that apparently was acquired in infancy but was inherited by his children.

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Thanks for strange debate, which CD returns. Principle of evolution has first-rate supporters in [Edward Sylvester?] Morse and Theodore Nicholas Gill.