Summary

What progress has been made with pigeon drawings for Variation?

Can WBT persuade Mr Zurhorst to repeat a pigeon experiment?

Summary

CD is happy to sign photograph. He will only require one copy of the journal.

Summary

Sends copies of photographs of himself. Asks for photographs of German naturalists.

Comments on EH’s account of Protogenes primordialis.

Summary

Has found Verlot.

His sister [Emily Catherine Langton] is dying [d. 2 Feb 1866].

His stomach still very bad. Writes one or two hours and reads a little.

JDH is a wretch to remind CD of his coal-plant prophecy.

Glad JDH will give Nottingham lecture.

Summary

Welcomes ARW’s paper on pigeons ["On the pigeons of the Malay Archipelago", Ibis 1 (1865): 365–400].

Influence of monkeys on distribution of pigeons and parrots.

Asks ARW to explain a passage in his paper on Malayan Papilionidae [Trans. Linn. Soc. Lond. 25 (1866): 1–71] on how dimorphic forms are produced. CD knows of varieties "that will not blend or intermix", but which produce offspring quite like either parent.

ARW’s remarks on geographical distribution in Celebes "will give a cold shudder to the immutable naturalists".

Presses ARW to work on his travel journal.

Summary

ARW’s simple explanation of dimorphic forms is satisfactory.

On "non-blending" of certain varieties, CD thinks ARW has not understood him. He does not refer to fertility. He crossed two differently coloured varieties of peas and "got both varieties perfect, but none intermediate". Something like this must occur in ARW’s butterflies.

Summary

Formal request for F. Lutké’s charts of the Caroline Islands and any charts by Beechey of the Lagoon Islands [Ellice Islands] that the Society might possess.

Summary

Thanks for photographs [of German scientists].

Summary

Thanks for all five numbers of Der Mensch [1866].

Had not known that Rütimeyer had written on modification of species.

Summary

Obliged for JW’s information on variability of size of bees’ cells. Hexagonal cells not always work of several insects. W. H. Miller found great variability in thickness of cell walls.

Summary

Will be pleased to sign FWF’s certificate for the Royal Society if he can send it to CD, who does not have the strength to go to London.

Summary

Discussion of Mrs Agassiz’s letter [to Mary Lyell, forwarded to CD] regarding S. American glacial action,

with comments on Bunbury’s letter on temperate plants.

Refers to opinions of Agassiz, David Forbes, Hooker, and CD on glacial period and glaciers.

Wishes he had published a long chapter on glacial period [Natural selection, pp. 535–66] written ten years ago.

Tells of death of his sister, Catherine, and other family matters.

Summary

[Caroline Darwin on behalf of CD] submits a petition to Darwin family for £20 to purchase a new double-barrelled gun, CD’s present one having become dangerous.

Summary

Asks botanical readers to inform him "whether in those monoecious or dioecious plants, in which the flowers are widely different, it has ever been observed that half the flower, or only a segment of it, has been of one sex and the other half or segment of the opposite sex, in the same manner as so frequently occurs with insects?"

Summary

Orders Richard Owen’s Anatomy of vertebrates [1866–8],

subscribes to Annals and Magazine of Natural History,

and orders three back numbers of Medical Times and Gazette.

Summary

Discusses beauty of birds and butterflies.

Summary

Thanks for sending facts on birds admiring themselves; mentions use in new edition [4th] of Origin.

Summary

Thanks CL for Hooker’s letter.

Discussion of Hooker’s views on glacial action and temperature with specific reference to S. America.

His squabbles with Hooker on transport of seeds via water currents,

temperate plants, and preservation of tropical plants during cooler period.

Expresses interest in seeing Agassiz’s letter.

Summary

Regrets that his health prevents their meeting, but offers some suggestions for the expedition to the Malay Archipelago and coast of China: the search of caverns in the Malay Archipelago for fossil bones, deep sea dredging in the tropics, glacial action in any moderately steep mountains, means of geographical distribution, the history of domestic animals in these regions, and gestures and expressions of real savages as compared with our civilised expressions. [See 5008 and 5011.]

Summary

Requests copy of paper read at Amsterdam Horticultural Congress, on graft-hybrids like that of Cytisus adami [see 5018].