Summary

Rejoices over baby’s improvement.

Horace Darwin has intermittent fever.

Thanks JDH for page of the Farmer, a great service.

R. Trail’s potato grafting case would be of extreme value for demonstrating Pangenesis. [See Variation 1: 395.]

Summary

C. Nägeli’s long letter on his four years of work on Hieracium appears to be valuable. Nägeli wants a set of British forms in exchange for German ones.

Sends note on a new genus of Umbelliferae (Drusa) in Canaries; speculates on origin.

Summary

Sends Oliver’s list of references on Adoxa.

Baby now out of trouble.

Pleased with Paris exhibition.

Summary

Trail’s case is interesting, hopes it is true.

Has little faith in I. Anderson-Henry’s exactness.

Pleased with Paris exposition.

Summary

Agrees with JDH about Anderson-Henry. He has however described in detail a curious case of the ovaria of Rhododendron directly affected by foreign pollen, like the Chamaerops and date-palm case.

Summary

Has sent JDH’s Genera plantarum to Fritz Müller who finds it useful and offers to supply JDH with Brazilian plants.

Summary

Sends Fritz Müller’s address; has sent him Insular floras [pamphlet].

Summary

Cannot come to Down; John Smith is unwell.

Will go to Paris again at end of month.

Wallace and F. J. H. von Mueller of Victoria are most likely candidates for Royal Society Gold Medal for biology.

Encloses letter from Henry Barkly.

Summary

Glad to hear Wallace is contender for Gold Medal. Has highest esteem for his extraordinary talents.

Thanks for H. Barkly’s letter from Mauritius.

Glad to see HB takes same view as CD about bones of deer [see 5395].

Objections to continental extension theory.

Progress [on Variation] very slow.

Summary

Does not share CD’s objection to continental extension, i.e., that it must be extended to every island in every ocean.

Sends paper on domesticated animals by Brian Hodgson [J. Asiat. Soc. Bengal 16 (1847): 1003–26].

Summary

It was foolish of him to say a word about continental extensions so briefly that he thinks JDH misunderstood him.

Summary

Leaves for London tomorrow. Hopes to see JDH there or perhaps at Kew, but doubts the latter. He is not strong and has a good deal to do.

Summary

Has been reading [H. C. Fleeming Jenkin’s] review in North British Review. Would answer it if not so lazy.

Has read Mount Sorel [A. Marsh-Caldwell (1845)] and Disraeli’s life of Lord G. Bentinck [1852]. Bad science, bad literature, bad politics.

Summary

Disappointed at not seeing JDH in London.

Summary

Has been too busy to write. Is leaving for Switzerland that evening.

A friend, who ran away from home as a boy, has two sons who have done the same several times. Is the case worth investigating for CD?

Summary

Sends W. M. Canby’s observations on the carnivorous powers of Dionaea. [See Insectivorous plants, pp. 301, 310, 313.]

Summary

Back from Switzerland. Mrs Hooker much improved.

Summary

Pleased JDH will come next Saturday.

Asks him to return Adam Bede.

Summary

Plans to come to Down on Saturday.

Returned Adam Bede two years ago.

Wishes CD would return Tylor’s Early history of mankind

and his own Himalayan journal with his notes, "both of which I have lent, i.e., lost".

Lyell well and full of "Insular" difficulties which he will propound.

Summary

His opinion of two novels: Mary Barton and North and south [both by Mrs Gaskell].

Sends R. O. Cunningham’s letters.