Thanks for Forms of flowers.
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The Charles Darwin Collection
The Darwin Correspondence Project is publishing letters written by and to the naturalist Charles Darwin (1809–1882). Complete transcripts of letters are being made available through the Project’s website (www.darwinproject.ac.uk) after publication in the ongoing print edition of The Correspondence of Charles Darwin (Cambridge University Press 1985–). Metadata and summaries of all known letters (c. 15,000) appear in Ɛpsilon, and the full texts of available letters can also be searched, with links to the full texts.
Thanks for Forms of flowers.
Sexual selection, he thinks, must be left to others to settle. "Conscious" will be substituted for "voluntary" selection. Sound- and scent-producing organs attributed to "natural", not "conscious", selection.
Report of child with tail and man with four nipples.
Further discussion of evidence for sexual selection. Prefers "conscious" to "voluntary" action. Distinguishes features that serve as charms and those that serve as challenges.
Has made out some of the functions of "bloom", which he outlines.
Sends two papers on Roman ruins at Cirencester, which he asks CD to return.
Worm observations.
Thanks for another part of Australian orchids.
An example of inheritance confined to one sex.
In Descent [1: 12] CD discusses intoxication among animals. South African elephants reportedly eat a plant that makes them wild.
Cites another example of inheritance of maternal impressions.
Thinks most monkeys would become habituated to alcohol if they could get it.
Has reread copy of Fritz Müller’s letter that CD sent some time ago and would like to publish the entomological observations in it.
Sends a list of errata in Forms of flowers.
Pleased with CD’s interest in temperance. Can he quote CD? Sorry the elephant story is a myth. It fits his argument for temperance: a passion for alcohol is natural [primitive]. Only the morally developed can resist. Moral development will take a long time. Thus education cannot cure alcoholism now. Thus public sale of alcohol must be outlawed. Although he is a follower of J. S. Mill and Herbert Spencer he has been forced to this conclusion.
Criticises passages of Insectivorous plants. Suggests plants be weighed before and after feeding to prove they have gained nourishment.
Thanks RIL for notes.
Asks about movement of Euphorbia.
Is doubtful about the publication of Fritz Müller’s letter after so long an interval.
Wants a Euphorbia to test for leaf movements.
Young Belgian students [L. A. Errera and Gustave Gevaert] ask CD to read their paper, which summarises Cross and self-fertilisation. They criticise CD’s views on the comparative effects of crossing flowers on the same stem and fertilisation of a flower by its own pollen ["Sur la structure et les modes de fécondation des fleurs", Bull. Soc. Bot. Belg. 17 (1878): 38–181, 182–248].
Thanks JVC for correcting a bad blunder in Forms of flowers.
His health fairly good; has been able to work "pretty hard".