Thanks CD for a copy of Earthworms.
Thanks CD for a copy of Earthworms.
Requests interview to get CD’s views on stages in evolution of the eye for a talk he is to give at a health congress. [Address to working men & women, 17 December 1881.] in Transactions of the Brighton health congress
Has read Earthworms and suggests, as an architect, that leaf linings protect worm burrow from the worm’s rapid movements.
Has been reading Julius von Wiesner’s book [Das Bewegungsvermögen der Pflanzen (1881)]. Comments that it is "an excellent book, but he vivisects me in the most grievous terms, but most effectively".
Has been experimenting on aggregation of chlorophyll but with little success.
Occupied with details of E. A. Darwin’s house and furniture. He has ordered a gravestone.
Thanks for book [Earthworms]. Asks whether leaf-mould is not formed by decay as well as by the agency of worms.
Can think of no suggestion to send to Mrs Forsyth. "The best plan is to read, think and speculate and then some suggestion or doubt will occur which can be determined or verified out of observation."
CD will be figured tomorrow in Punch. The artist, Linley Sambourne, expresses his deep respect.
Delighted to hear that HdeV intends working on the causes of variation.
Thanks for Earthworms.
Thanks for Worms.
Recounts a remarkable incident of development of worms in a barrel of wheat. Sends his account, having pondered CD’s view that plants and animals may have had a common ancestor.
Thanks for F. M. Balfour reference, which will serve purpose of his lecture on evolution of the eye.
Is in Cambridge with his son, resting
and reading F. M. Balfour’s Comparative embryology [1880–1].
Sent FM a copy of Earthworms.
Visiting his son Horace.
Studying action of carbonate of ammonia. Finds similar looking Euphorbia root cells react differently.
Intrigued by Dischidia rafflesiana, whose pitchers manufacture manure-water that nourishes adventitious roots. Does JDH know histologist for detailed study?
Julius von Wiesner’s criticism of Movement in plants "vivisects" CD in "a most courteous but awful manner" [Das Bewegungsvermögen der Pflanzen (1881)].
Thanks for presentation copy of Earthworms.
Thinks FD should review Julius von Wiesner’s book [Das Bewegungsvermögen der Pflanzen (1881)]. CD comforted that Wiesner’s experiments support their findings but finds it laughable how differently he has interpreted them.
Reports having found orthopteran egg-cases, affixed to a chalk statuette, that had themselves been coated with chalk, without doubt by the insect that deposited them.
Pleasure in reading Earthworms.
Buying land to build a cottage.
Finishing palms for Genera plantarum after three years’ work.
Will send 2d vol. [of his Pflanzenphysiologie (1881)].
CD has occasionally misinterpreted him in Movement in plants; by "after-working" (Nachwirkung) he means "after-working of preceding movements", not of the irritating cause [light].