Acknowledges his election as a Corresponding Member of the Imperial Academy of Sciences, St Petersburg.
Sends copy of a paper on his flock of sheep, which confirms much of what CD says in Variation,
together with a note he made of an instance of cattle "determining the existence" of a tree [cf. Origin, ch. 3].
Payment of 400 guineas [Variation royalties] delights CD.
Sends sheets with alterations to be made [in Russian translation of Variation]. VOK should consider adding to the title-page that CD is a Corresponding Member of the Imperial Academy of Sciences (St Petersburg).
Proportions of sexes of the silkworm are about equal, but knows of no statistics.
Cannot share his view of origin of species.
Crying in babies.
Visiting W. D. Fox.
Sends specimen of Cardamine pratensis,
and an account of a striped horse.
Discusses Pangenesis.
Has returned to religion and has been reflecting on God’s mercies, one of which CD should remember from about 1828 at Bodnant.
Obliged for JP’s account of sheep. Such articles would make naturalists think more of natural selection.
E. A. Darwin’s health bad.
Asks about sex ratio in sheep births.
Replies to CD on salmon: the pugnacity of males and the proportions of sexes. [see Descent 1: 308, 2: 3.]
Does not think females give preference to any males. Coloration, pugnacity; cases of use of colour in struggle for existence. [see Descent 1: 395.]
Discusses beaks and relative numbers of the sexes of goldfinches.
Comments on sexual selection among butterflies.
Mentions Kerguelen moth collected by Hooker.
Comments on JJW’s observations on coloured birds.
Wishes he had known of the views of Hippocrates, which are almost identical to his Pangenesis hypothesis. CD advances it as provisional, but secretly expects some such view will have to be admitted.
JM sends note for £420.
Asks CD to use his good offices on behalf of William Clowes’s son who is up for election to Athenaeum.
Acknowledges receipt of bill for £420.
Will try to attend Athenaeum meeting to help elect Clowes’s son.
First volume of Variation in French has been printed. Second volume has been translated. CD’s additions to chapter 11 arrived in time.
Would like to meet with WBT while in London.
States his intentions regarding Horace’s future education. CD thought he had made those intentions clear in an earlier letter.
Protective coloration in butterflies.
[Alexander] Wallace’s suggestion that collecting larger larvae of females accounts for error in counting proportion of sexes.
Various facts about birds: pairing, finding new mates, protective coloration, polygamy, sexual differences.
On critical exchanges at the Linnean Society on natural selection and mimicry.
Roland Trimen’s paper on South African mimetic butterflies ["On some remarkable mimetic resemblances among African butterflies", Trans. Linn. Soc. Lond. 26 (1870): 497–523; read 5 Mar 1868].
