Summary

Returns notes on mule yaks [see Natural selection, p. 438]

and sends queries on silkworms.

A bed is ready any time HF will come.

Summary

Has written down what he gathered from HF on Tibetan dogs. Would welcome a few more details at any time, as he knows of nothing parallel to it.

Summary

Can HF ask Col. E. Dickie [probably Col. Edward John Dickey] enclosed questions about Indian horses? [Questions relate to striped markings on the Kutch breed of horses.]

Summary

Arranges a time for visiting HF.

Summary

Has told Murray to send Origin to HF. "Lord, how savage you will be, if you read it, and how you will long to crucify me alive."

Summary

Suggests HF investigate hippopotamus tooth.

Has heard HF is very antagonistic to his views on species. Cannot believe a false theory would explain so many classes of facts.

Summary

Eldest daughter [Henrietta] very ill.

CD enjoys Owen’s having had "a good setting down".

Summary

Thanks HF for offer of valuable specimen, but CD has no aquarium. Suggests the Zoological Society would be the best place for it.

Will keep HF’s note among a very few precious letters.

Summary

Invites him to visit. JDH and one or two others coming.

Summary

Will try to call tomorrow. What HF tells him about horses makes him eager to come.

Summary

Extreme interest in MS of HF’s paper on the American fossil elephant [Nat. Hist. Rev. n.s. 3 (1863): 43–114].

Pleased HF does not believe in immutable species. Significance of proboscidean group verging towards extinction. Comments on natural selection preserving type despite variability. Natural selection solves problem of how every part of each creature has become adapted.

Summary

Explains that he returned the MS - part of a paper on fossil and living species of elephant (Falconer 1863) - to Falconer’s house in Park Crescent the previous Thursday.

Summary

Thinking about HF’s paper on Plagiaulax [Q. J. Geol. Soc. Lond. 13 (1857): 261–82]. Owen might answer that all Purbeck mammals are marsupials.

Summary

Comments on HF’s paper on Plagiaulax from the Purbeck beds. Paper "dreadfully severe" on Owen.

"I am worse than ever in bearing any excitement."

Glad HF attacked Australian Mastodon. Never did believe in him.

Mentions Primula paper [Collected papers 2: 45–63].

Summary

Has HF met with any cases of what gardeners call "sports" and what CD will call "bud-variations"?

Summary

His admiration for HF’s paper on American fossil elephant.

Notes "temporary irruption of S. American forms into N. America".

Rejoices that HF has "smashed" case of Mastodon on Timor.

Shares HF’s anger at Owen.

He is eager to hear about fossil bird [Archaeopteryx].

Comments on criticisms of species theory by [Johann Andreas?] Wagner.

Describes research on fertilisation of Melastomataceae.

Summary

If jaw belongs to Archaeopteryx, it will show great peculiarity. A German author has advanced the case as argument for Origin.

Summary

Good of HF to tell him about Brazilian beast. So intermediate a form is "very glorious". Must assume it is very old.

Summary

Thanks for information about Pliocene mammal. Interested in relating process of formation to duration of the species. Oswald Heer’s view that species suddenly formed surely false.

Bad summer with much sickness. Going to Malvern [for water-cure] for a month.

Muddled over phyllotaxy and made out nothing.

Summary

Sends address.

Comments on BAAS meeting at Newcastle.