Summary

Forwards H. T. Stainton letter for reply.

Finds many Cucurbita have tendrils with sticking ends.

The "potentiality of so many organs in plants to play so many parts is one of the most wonderful of your discoveries . . . one day it will itself play a prodigious part in the interpretation of both morphological and physiological facts".

Is disgusted with Sabine’s address [see 4708] because of its mutilation of what JDH wrote.

THH’s slashing leader in Reader ["Science and ""Church policy"" ", 4 (1864): 821] – as usual he destroys all in his path.

Encloses letter from G. H. K. Thwaites with a message for CD [see encl].

Summary

Comments on his Primula paper [see 4213].

Describes his situation in Calcutta.

Summary

Sends his paper on "Willow-galls" [Proc. Entomol. Soc. Philadelphia 3 (1864): 543–644].

Lengthy criticism of Agassiz’s views on species as stated in his Essay on classification [1857].

Interested by CD’s trimorphism in Lythrum. Thinks some great mystery may lie in the fact that in some genera, some species are tri-, some di-, and some monomorphic, and in other genera, Apis, Vespa, Bombus, all the known species are dimorphic.

Summary

Comments on CD’s Lythrum paper [Collected papers 2: 106–31]

and on H. Crüger’s orchid paper [J. Linn. Soc. Lond. (Bot.) 8 (1865): 127–35].

May take position at Calcutta Botanic Garden.

Regrets he cannot be elected to Linnean Society.

Pleased Asa Gray has commented on JS’s paper.

Summary

Thanks for congratulations on award of Copley Medal by the Royal Society.

Discusses his long period of ill health.

Summary

Mentions WED’s extraordinary discovery of some pollen-grains of different sizes. The observations must be followed up.

Summary

Returns WBT’s box of skulls. One or two skulls may be elsewhere, but CD does not have the strength to search for them.

Summary

Tells CD where to pick up the partridge’s foot with the ball of earth attached; sends a copy of his remarks on the same. [See Ann. & Mag. Nat. Hist. 3d ser. 13 (1864): 99–101.]

Summary

Sends papers with comments. Convinced that the Aru pig is a species peculiar to New Guinea fauna, not a domestic animal that ran wild.

Admires CD’s paper ["Three forms of Lythrum", Collected papers 2: 106–31].

Summary

JS has now taken post of Curator of the Royal Botanic Garden, Calcutta.

Wishes to vindicate himself of the charge that he pursued his experiments at Edinburgh to the detriment of his work.

Apologises for poor quality of his Verbascum paper, which was written from his notes during the passage to India [J. Asiat. Soc. Bengal 36 (1865) pt 2: 145–74].

Summary

Is sending FM’s two letters on climbing plants as a paper to the Linnean Society ["Notes on some of the climbing plants near Desterro, in south Brazil", J. Proc. Linn. Soc. Lond. (Bot.) 9 (1867): 344–9].

Adaptations for pollination in Catasetum.

Summary

Sends photograph.

THH wishes he could write the popular zoology but writing is a boring and slow process when he is not interested, and he is overburdened with lectures.

Summary

Thanks for note; sends photograph taken by one of his sons.

His continued ill-health has prevented him making the acquaintance of many.

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.

Summary

Gratified by AG’s praise of "Climbing plants".

Thanks for Specularia seed.

Summary

Reforms at Kew.

X Club Dinner. H. B. Wilson and J. W. Colenso as guests.

Troubled by Lubbock’s going into Parliament – loss to science.

Has written to Busk.

Sending Botanische Zeitung.

Summary

CD agrees about reversion.

The discovery of crossing in cryptogams is very interesting.

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.]