Summary

Is working on sexual selection and is interested in any anomalous sex ratios in lower animals and any sex-related characters.

Summary

FM’s new position in Rio.

CD interested in nature of surface deposits at Rio.

Sends a copy of Cross and self-fertilisation.

Summary

Has read FM’s paper on sponges ["Über Darwinella aurea", Arch. Miskrosk. Anat. 1 (1865): 344–53] with interest.

Has also read FM’s work on the metamorphoses of Peneus [Ann. & Mag. Nat. Hist. 3d ser. 14 (1864): 104–15], an interesting and important embryological discovery.

CD regards Louis Agassiz’s opinions as valueless.

Summary

Returns [Fritz?] Müller’s work [probably Für Darwin (1864)]. It is a remarkable memoir.

Summary

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

Comments on EH’s account of Protogenes primordialis.

Summary

Has just received CD’s letter of 12 April [13113]. To answer CD’s query, Heteranthera reniformis is an amphibious plant that grows as well on moist ground as it does in ditches filled with water.

For the past few weeks has been observing Phyllanthus plants that had shown the irregular movement in leaves returning from the positions assumed at night, but none has repeated the irregularity. Perhaps the progeny from the seeds he has collected will inherit the tendency for irregular movement.

Describes his observations of the power of movement in Cassia, Desmodium, and a few other plants.

Paul Mayer has identified seven new species of insects FM found in nine different species of figs.

Summary

Hopes CD has received his letter of 12 August.

Sends some new observations on climbing plants. [The observations are part of "Notes on some of the climbing-plants, near Desterro, in South Brazil", J. Linn. Soc. (Bot.) 9 (1867): 344–9.]

Summary

Feels CD’s and Fritz Müller’s judgments on his "Anwendung" essay [see 8313] are of highest value. Mentions some of FM’s comments.

Looks forward to second English edition of Descent.

Summary

Discusses Louis Agassiz’s theory of the glaciation of Brazil.

Summary

Thanks for CD’s letter inquiring about capsules produced by the Maxillaria with larger pods [see 5331]. Gives descriptions of Maxillaria and of the other Vandeae.

Describes Oncidium flexuosum.

Tells of botanical results of recent excursion to the German colony Theresopolis. Brought home fine collection of living orchids.

Summary

Thanks for observations on dimorphic plants. Dimorphism prevalent in certain groups throughout the world.

Retarded fertilisation in certain orchids.

Summary

Wants observations on a Papilio to see whether ticking noise is confined to one sex.

Experiments on self-sterility.

Will send copy of his orchid paper ["Fertilisation of orchids", Collected papers 2: 138–56].

Eschscholzia when self-fertilised, produced pods.

Summary

Encloses letter [from A. R. Wallace?] about the Reader.

Wants his opinion of a letter from Fritz Müller on climbing plants.

Summary

Thanks CD for German translation of Origin.

Droughts over the summers have brought about changes in the numbers of plants and animals in the area. The small quantity of Orchestia darwinii that has survived the changes no longer includes two previously common male forms. Great changes also take place without such unusual physical conditions. The disappearance of a briefly abundant bryozoan in local caves has made way not for the return of original bryozoan inhabitants but for a completely new fauna.

Summary

Thanks for facts on orchids.

Friedrich Hildebrand’s new book on fertilisation of plants [Die Geschlechten-Vertheilung bei den Pflanzen (1867)].

CD correcting proofs of Variation.

FM likes Ernst Haeckel’s book [Generelle Morphologie (1866)].

Summary

Thanks for interesting letter on climbing plants.

FM’s view on Anelasma seems probable.

Difficulty quoted by FM from A. Agassiz on embryology of Echinodermata is quite beyond CD.