Summary

Sends his MS on Dionaea and hopes it may be useful for JSBS’s lecture ["On the mechanism of the leaf of Dionaea muscipula", Not. Proc. R. Inst. G. B. 7 (1874): 332–5].

Summary

Comments on JS’s lecture on evolution ["Address on evolution", Aberdeen Daily Free Press 24 Feb 1874].

Summary

Sends his paper ["Tidal action as a geological cause", Proc. Liverpool Geol. Soc. 2 (1874): 50–72].

Has not yet studied CD’s list of South American molluscs.

Summary

Thanks for MS which he intends to read while on a week’s holiday.

Sends thanks for Francis Darwin’s offer of help and says that Francis’s experiments on digestion are complete.

Summary

"Half an answer" to CD’s query on visit of Sphinx to Hedychium gardnerianum.

Business affairs and family ill health keep him busy.

G. J. Allman will succeed Bentham as President of Linnean Society. Busk has refused.

Huxley is well.

JDH has indoctrinated Sir Stafford Northcote with his merits.

Lyell frail.

Old J. E. Gray goes on publishing.

"Is not [Thomas] Belt splendid!"

Summary

Thanks for information about Hedychium. Hopes wings of Sphinx will be found covered with pollen for that will be a fine bit of prophecy from the structure of a flower to special and new means of fertilisation.

Has been at Descent so hard he has done nothing, not even H. Spencer’s answer.

Has not yet read Croll ["Ocean currents", London Edinburgh & Dublin Philos. Mag. 47 (1874): 94–122, 168–90].

Has heard nothing about Carter and Eozoon. Eozoon, he infers, is done for.

Has read Belt [The naturalist in Nicaragua (1874)]: best of all natural history travel books.

Has written to Fritz Müller about leaf-carrying ants.

Hopes to resume work on Drosera.

Summary

Etty [Henrietta Litchfield] is helping with Coral reefs [2d ed.]; will JDH lend her his copy?

Summary

Heavily correcting sheets for Coral reefs, 2d ed. [1874]. Offers to pay extra printer’s charges.

Summary

On EA’s persecution by new government for liberal–republican position of his Revues; threat to remove him from Faculté de Droit, unless he renounces relations with Revues or changes their politics.

Has reviewed CD’s Orchids.

Summary

Asks for THH’s description of brain and skull [of man and apes] for 2d ed. of Descent [supplement to ch. 7].

Asks about Dohrn affair and contributions for Naples station. Doubts subscriptions will be successful.

Summary

FEA has expressed CD’s views on the moral sense with remarkable clearness and correctness; his eulogy is magnificent ["Darwin’s theory of conscience and its relation to scientific ethics", Index 12 Mar 1874]. Cannot give a judgment on the essay because he has had "no practice in following abstract and abstruse reasoning".

CD does not see how morality can be "objective and universal". No one would call the maternal bond in lower animals a "moral obligation". When a social animal "becomes in some slight incipient degree" a moral creature "capable of approving or disapproving of its own conduct" do not such obligations remain of a so-called instinctive nature rather than becoming at once moral obligations?

Summary

Sends results of experiments on digestion. Encloses two sets of notes: "Experiments on the digestibility of certain preparations sent by Mr Darwin" and "Note for Mr Darwin" [marked by CD for insertion in ch. 6 of Insectivorous plants].

Summary

Regrets he cannot visit Oxford.

Comments on sketches in letter from JP [9360].

Summary

His note on brain [in man and apes for 2d ed. of Descent] nearly finished.

Has heard nothing about Dohrn.

THH has been invited to lecture in America.

Summary

Thanks for the careful experiments, particularly on organic acids.

Summary

Confirms receipt of a book that had been lost by the Post Office (Vol. 1 Der Darwinismus und die Naturforschung Newtons und Cuviers (Darwinism and the natural researches of Newton and Cuvier; Wigand 1874–7).

Summary

Petition to protect gigantic tortoises on the Mascarene.

Summary

Encloses a circular [9384?] to explain the predicament he is in. Asks whether AG can get anyone at the British Museum, other than Owen, to join J. E. Gray in signing.

Believes the account of the Mallotus in American Naturalist [5 (1871): 119] is trustworthy.

Summary

Sends old Japanese picture suggesting evolution, found by Charles Longfellow.

Is pleased to hear CD attended a séance [18 Jan 1874]; asks for his views about communication among spirits.

Summary

Is willing to sell the land CD wants for £300.