Summary

"Half an answer" to CD’s query on visit of Sphinx to Hedychium gardnerianum.

Business affairs and family ill health keep him busy.

G. J. Allman will succeed Bentham as President of Linnean Society. Busk has refused.

Huxley is well.

JDH has indoctrinated Sir Stafford Northcote with his merits.

Lyell frail.

Old J. E. Gray goes on publishing.

"Is not [Thomas] Belt splendid!"

Summary

Sends Die Perigenesis der Plastidule [1876]. Comments on CD’s theory of Pangenesis. Explains his own theory of Perigenesis.

Returns Webb and Berthelot, Îles Canaries; Géographie botanique [1840].

Describes work on 3d ed. of Anthropogenie.

Summary

Agrees to write to William Ogle [about twins with crooked fingers].

Describes growth of sweetpeas for experiment.

Summary

Sends a lecture CD wished to see

and corrects himself about the twins.

Summary

Asks CD’s advice on procuring rabbits for experiments [to test Pangenesis by transfusing alien blood into does and breeding from them].

Summary

Definite results have been delayed, but he is optimistic.

Summary

Comments on FG’s article ["Hereditary improvement", Fraser’s Mag. 87 (1873): 116–30]. Finds it "the sole feasible, yet I fear utopian, plan of procedure in improving the human race".

Thanks for rabbits for Balfour.

Mentions reading W. R. Greg’s Enigmas [of life (1872)].

Summary

The evidence of tameness of Alpine butterflies [see 8672] seems good and the fact is surprising to CD for they can hardly have acquired this in their short life-time.

The question whether butterflies are attracted to bright colours independently of the supposed presence of nectar is still unanswered.

CD has great difficulty in believing that any temporary condition of parents can affect the offspring.

Pangenesis is much reviled, but CD must still look at generation from this point of view, which makes him averse to believing that an emotion has any effect on the offspring.